


It Happened One Night

by spanglemaker9



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-05-31
Packaged: 2017-11-06 11:40:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 66,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spanglemaker9/pseuds/spanglemaker9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just one night, just for fun, no strings and no expectations. Simple things never stay that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Her Face

**Author's Note:**

> WhatsMyNomdePlume beta'd.
> 
> Disclaimer-I'll only post this once; it applies for all subsequent chapters: Stephenie Meyer owns any Twilight characters and plot that may appear in this story. No copyright infringement is intended.

**  
**

I can hear the music from out in the parking lot of the Gaslight Lounge, and it just feeds into the adrenaline running through me. I’m humming with energy and anticipation. I want to get inside where it’s dark and loud. I want to drink. Maybe meet a girl. I want to feel this tense anticipation, this easy euphoria, all night long and it’s all about making it last.

 

Jasper slams the driver’s side door shut and rounds the back of the car. We fall into step beside each other. We’re both walking a little faster than normal, in a hurry to get in there and get started. In a hurry to get to tonight and all its endless possibilities. He flashes me a sideways grin and I know he’s thinking that, too.

 

We pause at the door to flash our i.d.’s and then we’re inside. We don’t come here too often. We’re more about the bars, and there is one that’s closer to our apartment that we usually hit. But lately it’s been an endless cycle of the same tired faces, the same worn-out conversations, the same stupid music playing on the jukebox in the corner. The pool of eligible women that hang out there has been completely depleted. If we spend any more nights there, one of us is going to do something we regret, with someone really unfortunate, just out of sheer boredom and lack of options.

 

We’ve been here before, but not often, so the possibility of something new and different is strong.  It’s more of a club than a bar—it’s darker, the music’s louder and there’s dancing, even this early. Not exactly my scene, but at least it’s a break from the usual.

 

Once we’re inside, we stand off to the edge of the dance floor for a few minutes and just look around. It’s Saturday night, so it’s packed already. I see a few familiar faces; girls that have come into the bookstore where I work, or girls that I’ve seen around town, out on other nights in other bars. Jasper elbows me once and tips his head towards a girl across the room, Maria, who he was hooking up with for a couple of weeks last year. Crazy. We both make a note to avoid her at all costs.

 

I make eye contact with a few girls, pretty ones. Everywhere I look, I see long, loose hair and bare shoulders, short skirts and high heels. I feel a thrill of anticipation, hoping that if I play my cards right, the night might end in lots of skin-on-skin with one of them. It’s been forever since I got laid.

 

We turn away from the dance floor and head to the bar, which stretches for half of the wall on the far right side of the building. It’s packed, two and three bodies deep, and I’m reminded why we usually spend our time at our neighborhood bar. I hate scenes like this.

 

Jasper elbows his way through and I squeeze into his wake, shrugging out of my jacket, since it’s too warm in here for it. A flashy redhead in front of us finally gets her drink and spins away from the bar, almost colliding with me. Some of her drink splashes out on my arm.

 

“Oh, fuck! Sorry.” She laughs, drunk or on her way to it. She reaches out and rubs her hand up and down on my forearm, not doing a thing to get rid of the vodka cranberry she spilled on me. I’m going to have to go to the bathroom and wash it off or it’s going to get all sticky when it dries.

 

“It’s cool,” I say, making to move around her into the space she left at the bar.

 

“Such a waste,” she says, this time her voice is lower and sexy. I pause to give her a once-over. She’s tall. In her heels, she’s almost as tall as me. She’s pretty enough but it’s all a little overdone and obvious. There are light freckles under her makeup that say the red hair is real, but the color is chemically amplified and almost garish. It’s a curly cloud that reaches halfway down her back. She’s got that kind of hair that inevitably invades other people’s personal space, which kind of creeps me out. On the other hand, it’s not a deal-breaker. Like her hair and her makeup, her clothes are pretty obvious. Tight, revealing, advertising all she’s got on offer.

 

She’s still rubbing her hand up and down my arm, her nails scraping lightly on each pass. I look down at her nails then up at her. She’s got her chin tucked in and she’s giving me her very practiced sexy stare. As I lock eyes with her, the tip of her tongue snakes out and swipes across her bottom lip.

 

I open my mouth to respond to the obvious signals she’s sending me when Jasper elbows me hard in the side.

 

“Edward, what are you drinking?” he shouts over the din of the bar.

 

I turn to answer since he’s finally gotten the attention of the bartender and if I miss him, I could be waiting forever for another chance to order.

  
Except the bartender is not a him. It’s a her. She’s got her hands spread wide and braced on the bar, watching me expectantly. She’s small, dwarfed behind the wide, heavy wood of the bar. Her long brown hair is swept off her pale face with a thin dark band. As I stare back at her, her dark eyes flick to the redhead still gripping my arm. The corner of her mouth hitches up a tiny bit and her right eyebrow cocks. She’s really cute.

 

“You drinking? Because if you’re not, thirty other people are waiting.”

 

“Ahh…” I fumble in my head for a second. “Vodka tonic,” I finally spit out. I don’t know where that came from. I drink beer. Bottled imports. I guess it was the smell of the redhead’s drink that made me say vodka. Whatever. The cute brunette wordlessly retrieves a glass from under the bar and spins on her heel to grab the vodka off the glass shelf behind her.

 

“So,” the redhead says, still trying to engage me. Her voice is really close to my ear and she smells strongly of alcohol already. “You here with anybody? Your girlfriend or something?”

 

My eyes glance over her—over the cleavage she’s pressing up against my bicep, and over her tongue licking her lips again. This would be easy. So easy. I glance over to Jasper. He’s staring down at the bar, but the huge shit-eating grin on his face tells me he’s heard and seen this whole exchange. As I try and make up my mind about what I’m going to do here, the bartender, that pretty, dark-haired girl, reappears in front of me. She whips out a cocktail napkin and sets my drink down on it with a snap and says, “Seven dollars,” without even glancing up. She wipes her hands on a bar towel and her hair falls forward in front of her shoulders.

 

She’s completely disconnected, not paying me an ounce of attention, but it doesn’t matter because I’ve made up my mind. As I reach for my wallet, I lean towards the redhead and talk into to her ear so she can hear me.

 

“I came with my buddy. His girlfriend just dumped him so we’re gonna hang. You get it, right?”

 

Understanding blooms across her face. “Oh, sure. I get it. But hey,” She trails off and starts digging in her little purse for something. I look back to the bartender. She’s looking at me now, all impatient to get her money so she can move on. The redhead has fished a pen out of her bag. Then, much to my horror, she leans across me and slides my drink off the cocktail napkin, sloshing a bunch of it across the bar in the process. As she’s scrawling her number across it, and pressing her torso across my chest, the bartender gives me one brief, annoyed side-eye before wiping down the bar with her towel. I plop a ten on the counter right next to her hand and try to shoot her a smile, but she doesn’t look up. In seconds, both she and the money are gone.

 

The redhead straightens up and tucks the wadded-up napkin in the pocket of my shirt and gives it a little pat. “For later.” She gives me a drunk, bleary smile that I think is supposed to be sexy and then she wobbles away.

 

Jasper’s head is hanging down and his shoulders are shaking with silent laughter.

 

“Shut up, man. Now I reek of that chick’s perfume. _And_ she spilled her drink on me. Then she spilled _my_ drink.”

 

“But she was so into you!” Jasper says, doing this fake-sigh and an eyeroll. I laugh and elbow him. He busts himself up laughing, which gets me going. Just then, Cute Brunette is back with my change. She slides three ones across the bar in my general direction, eyes elsewhere, face vacant.

 

“Hey, thanks,” I say, a little too loud and forcefully, just to make sure she hears me. She startles a little and looks up, puzzled. I push the change from my drink back towards her for a tip. She doesn’t say anything, she just tips her head in a little nod of acknowledgement before taking the change and turning back to the wall of shoving customers.

 

I smile at her back as she goes. The person to my right has vacated the barstool and I slide onto it, leaning forward on my elbows to watch Cute Brunette walk away. When I glance back to Jasper, he’s staring at me and not laughing anymore.

 

“What?”

 

“Seriously?” he says.

 

“What?”

 

“The bartender? You’re gonna waste your time on the bartender?”

 

“She’s cute.”

 

“Yeah, she is. She’s also the _bartender_.”

 

“So?”

 

“So… everybody knows hitting on the bartender is like whistling in the wind.”

 

“Oh, yeah? Everybody does, huh?”

 

Jasper scoffs. “Bartenders have heard it all. Every lame and brilliant pick-up line there is, and all the ones in between. They’ve heard them delivered by bastards _way_ smoother than you. And they hear it _all the time_. Absolutely _nobody_ ever gets anywhere with the bartender. Don’t waste your time.”

 

The bartender in question is about ten feet away, taking an order. Her hands are already busy, flipping a highball glass upright and reaching for the seltzer nozzle, even as she listens to the request. Her movements are quick and practiced, assured, no wasted energy, no fumbling. I like watching her.

 

“Maybe I want to waste my time.”

 

Jasper blows his breath out in a disgusted huff and settles back on the barstool next to mine, which just vacated. “Fine. At least we have seats.”

 

I grin and take a long swig of my drink. I want to down it fast, both to feel a little looser, but also to have an excuse to call her back over to me. That drunk redhead spilled a lot of it, so it doesn’t take too long. Jasper is laughing under his breath when I slide my empty glass across the bar and lean forward to get her attention.

 

She sees me flag her and lifts her chin, to let me know that she saw me, before finishing up her order. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I think she comes to wait on me quicker than she has for a lot of these other losers.

 

“What can I get for you?” she asks, hands planted on her hips. She’s smiling now, which is nice, but it’s a practiced, professional smile, all polite and distant. I think for just a second. If I switch over to my usual beer, all she’ll do is pop the top and leave.

 

“Another vodka tonic, please. With lime,” I say with a smile. I look straight at her as I do it, holding her eyes just a little longer than I would for any regular bartender. I see a flash of something in her face, an awareness, and her smile slips a little.

 

“You got it,” she says, ducking her head and getting to work.

 

“Sorry about that earlier.”

 

“Excuse me?” She glances up.

 

“That chick who spilled my drink all over your bar. Sorry for the mess.”

 

That hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth returns. “Oh. Spilled drinks pretty much come with the territory.”

 

“Yeah, I guess they would, huh?”

 

Her hands have been busy mixing my drink. She straightens up and starts to put down a fresh cocktail napkin, but I hold up my hand to stop her. She looks up at me in surprise. I pull the wadded up one out of my pocket, the one with the redhead’s number scribbled on it, and plop it down on the counter. It lands in a ring of condensation and immediately the numbers start to go blurry. I look back up at Cute Brunette, who’s still looking at me, now with a little more curiosity. She doesn’t look away, she just sets my drink down square in the middle of the napkin, where it obliterates what’s left of the number. I smile at her, never looking away from her eyes, which are brown and really nice. She responds with a tiny smile, just her lips curling up a little, but it’s genuine, and it’s just between her and me.

 

“Seven dollars,” she says softly.

 

I reach for my wallet, keeping my eyes on her. I slide my credit card across the bar. “You’d better open a tab for me.”

 

She reaches for it and I hang onto it for just a second, our fingers close enough to touch. Then I let it go and she slides it away. She heads to the register without looking back up. The last thing I should be doing is running up a bunch of shit on my credit card, but fuck it. I’m enjoying this.

 

I settle in to chat some with Jasper. It amazes me that after spending all week in the same apartment, Jasper and I can still find shit to talk about for an entire night out too. I keep one eye on Cute Brunette and he keeps one eye on the rest of the bar, looking for possibilities. The dance floor gets crowded, which means the bar empties out some, giving us a little breathing space. Jasper strikes up brief conversations with a couple of girls waiting for drinks, but nothing seems to be going anywhere.

 

I’m ready to talk to Cute Brunette some more, but my drink is still three-quarters full. If I down it as fast as I want to, I’ll be too drunk to be of much good.

 

“Watch my seat,” I tell Jasper as I slide off my stool. I head to the bathroom and dump my drink in the sink. As I return to the bar, I catch Cute Brunette’s eye at the end farthest from us and raise my empty glass. She sees me almost immediately and nods in understanding. She’s aware of me. Like, _really_ aware, which is good, I’m thinking.

 

She shows up in front of me almost as soon as I sit down.

 

“Another,” I say.

 

“Thirsty,” she says.

 

I smile and shrug. She takes my empty glass from me with one hand and wads up the wet cocktail napkin, the one with the redhead’s phone number with the other. It makes me chuckle a little and she smiles, too. She starts making my drink.

 

“Worked here long?” I ask. It’s a lame opener, but I can’t think of a better one.

 

She shrugs, eyes on my drink. “Long enough.”

 

“I’ve been in here before and I don’t remember seeing you.”

 

“Guess you missed me. I’m part time.”

 

“Student?” It’s a fair guess. We’re near the campus and she looks young enough. Her eyes flit up to mine, assessing, then back down.

 

“Grad school.”

 

She’s finished my drink and sets it down, sliding it across to me. I reach out to grab it and manage to brush her fingers just as she pulls her hand back. She keeps her eyes down and grabs for the bar towel, wiping her hands.

 

“I’m Edward,” I tell her. She looks back up, surprised that I’m going there, that I’m attempting this. There’s a kind of bored wariness to her face, and I know Jasper’s right. She must get this day in and day out from guys at the bar. If I’m going to succeed, I’ll need to be persistent.

 

“Hi,” she says with her fake polite smile again.

 

I roll my eyes and drop my shoulders. “Now comes the part where you tell me _your_ name.”

 

She smiles, and it’s more genuine now, and shakes her head a little, turning to move away.

 

“’Cause I’ve been calling you Cute Brunette in my head all night. Your real name has _got_ to be better than that. Unless it’s Mildred or something, and then I’d recommend that you just stick with Cute Brunette.”

 

She turns back, still smiling, which I’m taking as a good sign. She watches me for another second, like she’s trying to gauge something. I grin back, trying to appear as winning and harmless as I can manage.

 

“Bella,” she finally says.

 

“Nice to meet you, Bella.”

 

“This,” she waves a hand between us, “is not meeting. This is business.”

 

I cock an eyebrow at her. “Noted. Guess I’ll have to stick around until business is done, then, so I can meet you for real.”

 

She shakes her head and turns away.

 

“So you’re really all in on this one?” Jasper asks at my side, watching Bella go.

 

“Yup. All in.”

 

He shakes his head. “Your funeral. Guess you won’t mind if I see what else I can shake loose tonight?”

 

“Go. Just text me if you wanna leave.”

 

He nods and disappears into the crowd. I sip my drink and watch Bella work. I watch her talk and interact with the other customers and try and get a read on her. She’s blowing me off, I know that much, but I’m also pretty sure that there’s a spark there. There’s at least a little attraction, whether or not she’s going to let herself act on it. I just need to chip away at her resistance until she does.

 

I leave my jacket across my stool, hoping that nobody steals my seat while I go dump another seven dollars worth of vodka down the sink.

 

I wait a few minutes after I sit back down to call her over. She’s smirking as she approaches me.

 

“How much more of our vodka do you plan on throwing out?”

 

I grin at her. “Busted. But I’m paying for it, so it’s _my_ vodka now. I can pour it where I want, right?”

 

She shrugs. “It’s your money. I guess so.” She starts making me another drink.

 

“I’m not made of it, though. You could make this a lot easier on me by just talking to me.”

 

She laughs out loud. Not a lot, but it’s real. “I’m working.”

 

“I see that. But when you’re not…”

 

“What?”

 

“Come talk to me.”

 

She levels me with a look, no laughing now. “What do you want?”

 

I look back, just long enough for her to start squirming. I give her a long, slow smile and cock an eyebrow at her. “You really want me to answer that now?”

 

Her eyes go wide and she stills. I take in every detail. Her breathing picks up, her chest rising and falling with each inhale. Her nostrils flare slightly. That definitely had an effect on her.

 

Out of my peripheral vision, I see someone leaning over the bar to get her attention. “I have to go,” she mutters, turning away quickly.

 

“Come back before I have to dump another perfectly good drink.”

 

I sip my drink and wait. About fifteen minutes later, there’s a lull. Another bartender has come on duty and it’s not as busy. I watch her look up and down the bar for anyone waving at her. No one is. She wipes her hands on a bar towel, then she wipes down the counter. She checks the levels on the kegs and the soda dispenser. She checks all the liquor bottles on the shelf behind her. She gets a new bottle of Jack Daniel’s down. She does a quick count of glasses and calls for one of the bus boys to bring her more. She checks again for patrons.

 

Then she glances at me.

 

I smile.

 

She drops her head and chuckles a little before slowly making her way down to me. She makes a show of checking the garnish tray, but since it’s near me, it works out quite well.

 

“So…” she says.

 

“Hi,” I reply. “How’s your night?”

 

“It’s okay, except there’s this one pushy patron. Total stalker.”

 

“Show me where and I’ll kick his ass,” I say with a smirk.

  
“No worries. I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”

 

“I’m sure you are.”

 

“You bet I am.”

 

“Okay.” I exhale, leaning back on my stool, “Now that you’ve warned me of your ninja-like self-defense skills, can we talk? You’re not going to break my wrists or something, right?”

 

She laughs. “Not if you stay over there where you belong.”

 

“Consider me warned.”

 

“So what do you want to talk about?”

 

“Anything.”

 

She gives me a bored look. “This was your idea. I’m not doing all the conversational heavy lifting.”

 

“So what are you getting your degree in?” Seems safe and impersonal enough that she might answer. If I can get her started talking, maybe I can keep her going.

 

“Comparative Literature.”

 

“And you work here outside school?”

 

“Yeah. What do you do? You know, when you’re not creeping on innocent bartenders just trying to do their jobs.”

 

“I work in a bookstore. See? Perfectly respectable.”

 

Her eyebrows shoot up, the first sign of genuine interest I’ve seen in her tonight. “Really? Like Barnes and Noble?”

 

“Ah, no. A little independent place near campus. Sunset Books.”

 

She turns to face me fully, all her manufactured busy work momentarily forgotten. “You work there?”

 

“Yeah. I just said I did. Why?”

 

“So you know the owner, then?”

 

She’s testing me—I get it. She’s making sure I’m not _really_ some stalker creep who’s trying to worm his way in with her. Jesus, do I _look_ like a stalker creep? I don’t think so, but I make a mental note to reassess my haircut tomorrow.

 

“Carlisle? Sure. I know his wife, Esme, too. Wait… have you been there?”

 

She nods. “Now and then. He special orders stuff for me sometimes.”

 

“Really? How is it that I’ve never seen you?”

 

“Bad timing, I guess. I don’t get over there too often. I usually order stuff online. But I like the store and it’s better to spend my money there than Amazon, you know?”

 

“Yeah, I know. The store is great.” It’s blowing my mind that she’s been in the bookstore, that she knows Carlisle. She said he’s ordered stuff for her. That means I’ve probably handled her orders myself at some point. “Small world, huh?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

We look at each other for a second, and the distance between us suddenly feels much smaller. From the look on her face, I’m thinking she feels that way too. Then somebody waves and calls to her and she snaps out of it. She leaves to go fill their order without another glance.

 

I nurse my drink for real this time, letting the vodka loosen my joints and fuzz my thinking just a little. Jasper comes back over to get another drink and Bella comes to take his order but doesn’t linger.

 

“How’s it going?”

 

 I shrug. “We’re talking.”

 

“God, that’s so hot.”

 

“Shut the fuck up.”

 

He busts up.

 

“What are _you_ up to? You’ve been gone a while.”

 

Now he shrugs. “Maria.”

 

“Jesus, are you crazy? I thought the plan was to avoid her at all costs.”

 

“Whatever. She’s single again. She seems kinda chill now. Anyway, we’re just talking.”

 

Bella appears with Jasper’s beers.

 

“Bella,” I say, “This is my roommate, Jasper. Jasper, Bella.”

 

“Hey,” she says with a little smile. I like being able to introduce her like that. It makes me feel like I have an in with her, like I’ve made some progress.

 

Jasper smiles in return and throws some money down for his beers. “Nice to meet you, Bella. Maria is waiting for these, so I’d better go.”

 

I snort behind my hand. He elbows me hard and leaves.

 

“What was that about?” Bella asks.

 

“Just… Jasper’s wandering back down a road best not traveled.”

 

Bella raises her eyebrows at my cryptic shit but doesn’t comment. “You ready for another?”

 

I nod. She starts to make it. “So what time are you done tonight?”

 

“Why do you want to know?”

 

I laugh. “Why the hell do you think?”

 

She sets a fresh drink in front of me. “I think you’re getting way too far ahead of yourself.”

 

I hold my hands up in front of me. “Hey, I’d just like a chance to introduce myself, since according to you, this doesn’t count and we’re still strangers.”

 

She ignores my attempt at a joke and keeps on. “So you’re just going to hang out here until closing and follow me home or some shit? You know my dad’s a cop, right?”

 

“I didn’t know that, but all your ninja fighting skills make more sense now. I’m just going to hang out here and talk to you. I won’t go anywhere I’m not invited.”

 

“You won’t be.”

 

“Why are you so sure?”

  
“Why are _you_ so sure?”

 

“I’m not _sure_. I’m optimistic. There’s a difference.”

 

Bella shakes her head and wipes down the bar, which seems like some sort of automatic reflex for her when she’s nervous. “I have no idea why you’d feel optimistic.”

 

I lean forward on my elbows. She’s caught off-guard and doesn’t immediately back up. “It’s simple. I’m attracted to you. A lot.  And I’m pretty sure you’re attracted to me, too.”

 

She blinks once, barely breathing. Then, without a word, she turns and stalks off down the bar. I curse under my breath. That was a total failure. I mean, she’s attracted to me, I’ve figured that much out, but Jasper’s right; her defenses are dug in deep. At this point, though, I’ve spent most of my night sitting at this bar flirting with her. My only alternative is to give up and go home, which is unappealing. So I’ll sit and wait till closing.

 

Twenty minutes later, Jasper texts me.

 

_Heading out soon. You coming?-J_

_No, staying -E_

_Suit yourself -J_

I chuckle. If this all blows up in my face, I’ll just call a cab, or walk. It’s not all that far to our apartment. Either way, I’m committed.

 

She avoids me for most of the next hour. She keeps her eyes averted and deals with the patrons at the other end of the bar. I even resort to dumping out my drink in the bathroom again, but when I try and flag her down for a refill, the other bartender, a short blond guy, steps in to wait on me.

 

The short blond guy seems to have as much of a problem as I do keeping his eyes off Bella. She smoothly skirts both me and him, but it’s pretty obvious he’s trying to engage her in chit-chat whenever things get slow. She smiles and gives him brief answers before moving away to another part of the bar. Watching the little dance she does around him is actually kind of amusing. Eventually, she’s more desperate to avoid him than me, which gets her back in my orbit again.

 

She’s refilling the garnish tray near me, eyes fixed on her hands.

 

“Don’t be mad,” I say.

 

“What?”

 

“I was just being honest. I figured you’d appreciate that.”

 

She closes her eyes and blows out a huge breath. “I do appreciate it,” she says. “But you… I don’t do this.”

 

“Don’t do what?”

 

She turns and leans on the bar and she’s _there_ again. Not the brusque polite professional. _Her_.

 

She waves a hand at me. “ _This_. Cute boys in bars. I don’t do this. Don’t get me wrong, I have before. But yeah… I’m a grown-up now and I’ve had enough of the charm and the swagger and the empty flattery. I’ve seen it all and I’ve heard it all and it just isn’t going to work on me. You’re not going to sweep me off my feet.”

 

I lean forward, just watching her for a second. “Unless you want to be swept.”

 

“What?”

 

I shrug. “Unless you want it, too. You’re allowed to want it, you know.”

 

She opens her mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. She snaps it closed again, looking flustered, out of sorts, pissed.

 

“You ready for a refill yet?” she finally says, pointing at my glass.

 

“No, actually. Your friend over there hooked me up.”

 

She rolls her eyes. “Mike.”

 

“Yeah, _Mike_. He seems nice.”

 

She snorts dismissively. “ _Very_.”

 

“Very.”

 

“Look, I have to get back to work.”

 

“You do that. I’m just going to sit here and drink my drink.”

 

“You do that.”

 

“I will.”

 

“Okay.”

 

After that, we don’t really talk much. But she’s hovering. Every now and then she looks up and catches me watching her and she doesn’t look away. Her façade of impersonal politeness seems to shift slightly. She chews on her bottom lip and it’s like I can see the wheels turning in her head. She’s _thinking_ about it.

 

At last call, she finally heads in my direction with my credit card and the slip for me to sign. I do, and then I push it back towards her.

 

“So was it worth it? All that liquor you poured down the drain?”

 

She grabs the credit card slip and I brush my fingers over the back of hers. I don’t grab her or linger, I just touch. “I don’t know yet.”

 

She rolls her eyes, but there’s a ghost of a smile now and she doesn’t snap at me.

 

“Hey, Bella, don’t leave until I close out the register,” the other bartender, _Mike_ , suddenly calls out.

 

She turns to look at him over her shoulder in surprise. “What? Why? I’m not closing.”

 

Mike shifts his weight. “Just… I don’t want you walking out to your car alone. It’s not safe. Just wait for me and I’ll walk you out.”

 

I sense my opening and I walk right through it. “It’s cool,” I say, loud, so he can hear me. “I’m heading out, too, so I’ll make sure she gets to her car okay.”

 

Bella’s head whips around to look at me and I just smile.

 

“Who are you?” Mike asks, too surprised to even pretend to be polite.

 

I turn to look at him, just a little bit challenging. “I’m Edward. Bella knows me from work.”

 

I look back at her to see if she’s going to contradict me. Her eyes flicker between me and Mike. That guy must be some kind of serious creep because suddenly she shrugs dismissively and decides I’m the better option.

 

“It’s cool, Mike. Edward can walk me out. I’ll see you on Monday.”

 

He stands there staring but he can’t argue without showing his hand, so he doesn’t. I’m resisting the urge to grin like a madman. I stand up and wait with my hands stuffed in my pockets, the picture of casual nonchalance, as Bella retrieves her jacket and purse from under the bar.

 

“You ready to go?” I ask her as she lifts the pass-through and ducks under.

 

She turns her back to Mike and hisses at me. “What the hell? What about your friend, anyway?”

 

“He left.”  
  


“How are you getting home then?”

 

“Remains to be seen.”

 

She shakes her head and slips past me. I follow her through the bar and out the door. There are still patrons scattered across the parking lot, standing around their cars, not ready to let go of the night just yet. She leads me through the lot and around the left-hand corner of the building. We almost run into a couple folded around each other, making out in the dark. Bella stops short and I almost run into her. I put a hand out on her waist to steady her a little.

 

“Sorry,” she mutters to the couple, skirting around them with her head down. “You really are something,” she says, turning her head to look at me over her shoulder, her voice lighter. “Do you make a habit out of this? I mean, is this how you meet girls? And I have to know, does it ever actually work?”

 

We’re crossing the employee lot now. It’s dark, and mostly empty. Mike was right—she really shouldn’t be out here alone. There’s an old white Toyota Camry by itself across the lot that Bella seems to be heading for.

 

I sigh. “No. Actually, you should know, I _don’t_ make a habit out of this. So I guess I don’t know if it actually works or not. That’s for you to decide.”

 

She groans. “Why do you keep _saying_ stuff like that? How am I supposed to… You never stop, do you?” Her head is down as she fishes her keys out of her bag. We’re nearly to her car now.

  
“Not when I want something.”

 

Her steps falter a little and she drops her keys. “Shit,” she mutters, and freezes in her tracks. I stop and lean down to scoop them up. She doesn’t turn to face me or even look at me. I hold her keys out to her side. Slowly, she reaches out and her fingers close around them. I twist my hand until it closes around hers. Her shoulders drop.

 

“Bella?”

 

There’s a long, low sigh as she breathes out, then she half-turns towards me. I don’t let go of her hand. I brush my thumb back and forth over her knuckles.

 

“Yeah?” she says, but she doesn’t look at me. Her eyes are on my hand wrapped over hers. I can feel how tightly she’s gripping her keys.

 

“Can you disengage those ninja defenses for just a second?”

 

“What?”

 

“I just want to try one thing. Then you’re free to tell me to fuck off. Or you can gouge my eyes out with your keys, because I can feel that you’ve got them all properly aligned in your hand to do it just like your cop dad taught you.”

 

She smiles a little then and so do I. “What is it?” she whispers, even though I’m pretty sure she knows what I’m about to do.

 

“I want to kiss you.”

 

I pause, for just a second, to wait for her response. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t move a muscle. So I lean in and brush my mouth against hers. Not even a kiss yet, just the suggestion of one. I press in, pulling her bottom lip between mine just a little, before I release her.

 

I don’t straighten back up, I just hover, my face inches from hers. Her eyes are closed as she pulls in a shaky breath. She opens them and her eyes find mine. She’s still not pulling away.

 

So I lean in again. Another brush. Then a kiss, a real one, my lips pressed to hers. I take it so slow, mouth closed, just a gentle caress of lips on lips. Seconds later, I feel her respond, a whisper of movement under my mouth. Heat explodes in my chest, but still I restrain. I don’t grab her. I’m not even touching any part of her but her hand and her mouth. Gently, slowly, I rub my lips across hers. I pull at her top lip, I press, I kiss the corner of her mouth. She starts to kiss back. Her lips slip against mine.

 

I open just a little and I can feel her breath in my mouth. Jesus, she tastes good and she feels good and I want this girl so badly that I think I might go out of my mind. Her mouth opens, too, and now there’s no mistaking the give-and-take. I’m not pressing an advantage. I’m kissing her, and she’s kissing me back.

 

I bring my free hand up to cup her face and tilt her head. She leans into me and I take a step towards her, closing the space I’d left between us. I let go of her hand and find her hip, fitting her up against me.

 

The kiss spirals on. I lick her bottom lip and she kisses harder. I slip in to find her tongue with mine. I groan; she sighs. I slide my hand back into her hair, gripping the back of her neck so I can make this deeper, more intense. No more exploring, nothing tentative. Her hands are on my shoulders, hanging on. Her body is pressed against mine. I step forward again and her back is against the side of her car. Her hand slides up the side of my neck, cupping my jaw, then back until her fingers are in my hair. It feels good. All of it feels so fucking good.

 

We break the kiss and I move to her cheek, the little hollow under her jaw, her neck. I cradle the back of her head with my palm as she bares her neck to me.

 

“Come home with me,” I whisper into her skin.

 

She groans, a low sexy sound of frustration, and her fingers twist into the hair on the back of my head. I smile into her neck and lick her before pressing my lips to the wet, salty spot under her ear.

 

“Ughh,” she sighs. I scrape my teeth along her neck on my way back up to her mouth, and she murmurs, almost to herself, “You’re such a good kisser and you’re so damned… _pretty_ , and it’s been so long….”

 

I shut her up with my mouth, hoping that another good five minute kiss will make up her mind. She’s eager now, and we’re all over each other with lips and tongues. Her hands fist into my hair and I pin her body between mine and the car. I press my hips against hers, digging my fingers into her ass to hold her there.

 

Her head drops back a little. I don’t relent, kissing her earlobe, the corner of her jaw, her temple, her cheek. I press my lips against hers again, but soft. I brush them back and forth, hoping she’s imagining the feel of my mouth on other parts of her body, because I am.

 

I move to kiss her cheek and whisper to her, “I’ll make it so good for you. I promise I will.”

 

She groans again, her eyes closed tight. “You are one smooth motherfucker.”

 

I kiss her bottom lip, then the edge of her mouth. “I promise,” I repeat.

 

She sighs, a long shuddering breath of air across my neck. “Get in the car.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Her Body

**  
**

_“Get in the car.”_

 

I’m sure she can feel my smile against her cheek when she answers. I come back to her mouth and kiss her hard and deep to give her a taste of what’s coming next.

 

“You won’t be sorry,” I say when I finally pull away.

 

“No, I don’t think I will be,” she says, before turning in my arms to unlock the car. I move away then, and cross to the passenger side. I’m already seated, twisting in my seat to face her when she settles in and starts the car. She glances over at me, unsure and a little nervous. I reach out with both hands, grabbing her face and pulling her in so I can kiss her again.

 

She exhales once I release her. “Um… where do you live?”

 

I direct her to my place, never so grateful as I am in this moment that it’s close by. I’m praying that Jasper is already asleep—or as unpleasant as the idea is in general, that he’s gotten lucky with Maria and isn’t there at all.

 

We don’t talk on the way to my apartment. It’s too tense and there’s nothing to really discuss anyway. We both know what this is about. I keep one hand on her thigh as she drives. I don’t grope her or try anything suggestive, I just want to stay connected to her until we get there.

 

I direct her to park around back and take her hand when we get out of the car. Jasper’s car isn’t here, so I’m guessing the thing with Maria happened after all.

 

We live in an old Victorian home that has been split up into apartments geared mostly towards students. After several decades of students living here, it’s a little run-down, but it’s convenient and cheap. Plus, we have the biggest apartment, which is the entire second floor. Jasper and I moved in together as sophomores and we’re still here, even though neither of us is in college anymore. Well, not right now, in my case.

 

There’s a narrow wooden staircase added to the outside of the house that isn’t very attractive, but gives us our own entrance to the apartment. I let us in and it’s quiet and almost dark—only the small side lamp we left on hours ago across the room. I turn to Bella, standing just inside the door.

 

“You want a drink or something?”

 

She shakes her head, looking apprehensive. I’m not an idiot. She’s not that girl, not one of those barflies who pick up a different guy to sleep with every weekend. But I remember the way she kissed me by the car, and I remember her words. _“It’s been so long…”_

 

She’s giving in to something that she usually spends a lot of energy resisting. I’m momentarily stunned that she came home with me at all—that I got her to say yes and give in to her attraction. It’s a little intimidating.

 

And I made her a promise that she wouldn’t be sorry. I promised her I’d make it good for her and I intend to do just that. So I go slower than I usually might. I step into her space and bring my hands up to cup her face. Her eyes are huge and dark in the shadowy room. She lets her bag slide off her shoulder and it hits the floor with a thud.

 

I kiss her, slow and gentle, taking my time, easing her back into this. Whatever is about to happen, this won’t be some desperate quickie against the wall. I want her naked in my bed where I can do all the things I’ve been thinking about since I first saw her. I want it to last. I want it to take all night.

 

We kiss for a long time, until she’s into it again, until her hands are back in my hair and she’s arching herself up against me. I slide her jacket off her shoulders and it lands in a pile next to her bag. I fumble out of mine, too, tossing it off to the side.

 

I back us up, pulling her towards my room, praying that I haven’t left too much of a mess in there. We bump into a corner as we turn down the hall and we run into the wall once, but I keep kissing her and tugging her forward. She doesn’t seem to care. She just hangs onto me and meets every kiss with all she’s got.

 

Spinning her into my room, I slam the door behind her with one hand and back her into it. She groans as I press her into the wood. I release her mouth to move to her neck and then down to her chest. She’s wearing a little black button-up shirt. I run my fingers down her neck, slide them down her chest to the first button. I don’t go for it right away though. I dip my fingers down into her cleavage and drag them back up until I’m cupping her chin with my hand as I kiss her hard. I do it twice more before I finally slip the first button free.

 

It’s a long slow descent down her torso, releasing buttons as I go, until her shirt hangs open. I move to her neck again—just so I can take a look at her. She’s so pale, all smooth swells and curves. Her bra is black and basic, further proof that ending up in bed with a guy was the last thing on her mind tonight. For some reason, that turns me on even more.

  
I hold her waist and kiss and nip at her neck until her head falls back. I slide my hands up her ribs, heading for the gentle fullness of her breasts. Her skin is so soft and she’s so pretty. Her little sounds are driving me crazy and making me want to jump on her and just take her. I’m hard and I have been since I closed the front door behind us, but I won’t rush through this. I promised her it would be good. I’ll make it good.

 

I take my time, but eventually I get her on the bed. Her shirt is gone, slowly stripped off her and tossed away. She’s pulled my shirt off me too, and now we’re lying together, wrapped around each other, pressed so tight, skin-to-skin. Her nails scrape across my scalp and I bite at the corner of her jaw.

 

My hands won’t stop moving. I can’t get to enough of her. Her breasts are perfect in my hands, my fingers curl exactly into the dip of her waist. I pull her knee up and she hooks her leg around my hip. Now it’s my turn to moan as I rock against her. I know I’m going to lose my mind once I’m inside of her, so whatever I’m going to do to make this about her will have to come before that.

 

I ease up, dragging out the kisses, slowing the frantic movement of my hands. I want to get to know her body and figure out what she likes. She sighs and arches her back when I cup her breasts, so I reach around and unhook her bra, wanting to feel her without the fabric between us.

 

Her head falls back and her eyes open. She’s looking at me. Once I slide the straps down her arms, she’s officially undressed in front of me. I can see her turning it over in her mind and more than anything, I _really_ don’t want her to change her mind and scramble out of this bed. So I coax her with my hands and my fingers, stroking her face and her neck, smoothing down over her shoulders, dipping in behind her collarbone, tracing a line to the edge of her bra with my index finger. She sighs and her back comes up off the bed a little. I hook my finger around the edge and drag it down.

 

Everything else comes off her just as slowly. I ease her pants off her while I press her down and kiss her like crazy. When she’s just in her underwear, I scoot down and kiss her—on her hip along the edge of her panties, over the fabric, right where she can feel it the most. She doesn’t hesitate when I slide them down her legs.

 

I put my mouth everywhere on her—her breasts, her stomach, her thighs, the hollow of her hip—and I put my hands everywhere my mouth isn’t. She reaches for my zipper, but I want to focus on her first. I know if she touches me, this will all be over too soon, so I pull her hands up and wrap them around my neck as I kiss her. My fingers go lower and find new places on her—soft, slick places. I figure out what she likes and how to touch her.

 

It’s all wordless. I want to say her name; I want to hear her say mine. But it’s like we’re under a spell in the silence and dark, and words would ruin it. So I kiss her instead of talking. I press soundless whispers into her skin that tell her how beautiful she is and how good she feels. I let her gasps and moans and all her little sexy sounds speak for her.

 

I use my fingers and the heel of my palm until she comes for the first time, shaking and sighing under me. I can’t wait any longer. She lays spent as I shrug out of the last of my clothes and get ready. I’m over her, trying not to crush her. Her long, pale legs are wrapping around me. I kiss the side of her neck and then I’m inside her. I was right—once I’m there I can barely think. It’s all just heat and sensation and _girl_. I slide my arms under her shoulders and wrap my hand over her head to anchor myself as I finally just take and take.

 

Bella is arching up underneath me, writhing in a way that makes me think she’s close again. So I grit my teeth and hang on. I try not to feel the heat and the tight or her fingernails scraping down my back or her lips on my shoulder. I just focus on her and hang on until I feel her shaking under me. She gives a little cry and goes stiff; that’s when I let myself feel it again. I let the awareness flood back in of the sensation of this girl and her body and the way she’s making me feel. And then I’m there too, clumsy and desperate, my rhythm lost as I gasp into the hollow of her neck and everything whites out with pleasure.

 

As the combination of bliss and lethargy steal over me, I slide myself out of her and move my weight off her. She’s laid out flat on her back, eyes closed, one arm thrown up over her head. There’s a small smile on her lips. I throw the refuse in the trash next to the bed and roll back to my side, facing her. I curl my hand over her arm at her side, stroking my finger up and down the soft skin inside her elbow.

 

I don’t know how much later it is when I become aware of her moving around. I think I dozed off. She’s sitting up on the edge of the bed, gathering up her clothes from the floor.

 

“Bathroom?” she asks, over her shoulder. She’s got her shirt and pants in her arms. She’s going to clean up, get dressed and leave. I should feel grateful. No awkward ‘Can I stay for the night?’ and definitely no tense morning-after to deal with. But all of a sudden, I don’t like that she’s leaving. The sex was amazing and her slipping out in the middle of the night makes it feel cheap.

 

“Uh, first door on the left,” I say. She stands up and glances around the floor for something. I don’t think, I just act. I reach out and grab her wrist. She stills and turns to look at me. “Stay the night.”

 

She says nothing and I can’t read her expression in the dark.

 

“C’mon,” I urge her. “Come back to bed.”

 

Finally she murmurs, “I need the bathroom.”

 

“Okay.” I don’t know if that means yes or no, so I heave myself up and roll off the other side of the bed. I fish a clean t-shirt out of my dresser and hand it to her, thinking it will convince her. She takes it and instead of letting it go, I tug until she’s leaning across the bed. I lean in and kiss her softly.

 

“Stay.”

 

She doesn’t say anything, she just nods. She leaves for the bathroom and I curl back up in bed. Minutes later she’s back, crawling up the bed, the tips of her long dark hair brushing the sheets, my t-shirt gaping wide at the neck. I smile at her in the dark and she lays down on her side, facing away from me. I scoot in close, until her back is pressed down the length of my front. I curl around her, my arm across her waist and my face in her hair. She smells good and she feels soft and warm. I’m unconscious in seconds.

 

I wake up on my back. My right arm is splayed out at my side where Bella was all night, but there’s only empty bed there now. I squint at the sun coming in the blinds.

 

“Hey.”

 

She’s perched on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, bag on her shoulder, cell phone and car keys in her hand.

 

“Hey,” I say, my voice scratchy with sleep. I rub a hand across my eyes and try to focus.

 

“Last night was, um…” She’s looking at her lap.   
  
I reach out and grab her wrist to get her attention. “Last night was great.”

 

She smiles a little at me, but it’s guarded and tight. It’s the bartender smile again. “I have to go.”

 

“Wait…” I pull her phone out of her hands and start punching numbers.

 

“What are you—”

 

From across the room, in the pocket of last night’s pants on the floor, my cell phone vibrates. I smile and hand her back her phone.

 

“Now I’ve got your number. And you’ve got mine.”

 

She smiles and shakes her head ruefully. “Fine.”

 

“I’ll call you.”

  
She looks at me and I swear to God, her smile is completely patronizing. She doesn’t think for a second that I actually will. And I don’t know—up until this minute, I wasn’t sure if I was going to or not, but I will now, just to prove her wrong.

 

“Okay,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Talk to you soon.”

 

“Yeah. Soon.”

 

She doesn’t say another word, she just gets up and leaves. I lay there for a while after she goes. I remember last night and all her sounds and the way she felt and fuck… if she was still here, I’d be all over her again. I’m kind of sorry I didn’t wake up earlier so we could have fooled around some more before she left.

 

Jasper must have come home at some point last night because his door is closed when I wander out to get ready for work. I wonder what went down with Maria. While I’m more grateful than I can say for the empty apartment when I needed it, I’m not at all happy about the possible re-emergence of Maria in his life. She’s a crazy piece of work and she likes to fuck with his head.

 

As I’m headed down to my car, I pull my phone out, thinking about maybe waking him up with a phone call and giving him some shit about her. Maybe I can also gloat a little about my success last night. Then I feel guilty about that momentary impulse. I shouldn’t brag about Bella like some sort of conquest when I know how hard it was for her to give in to that. The least I can do is respect her in that sense.

 

I’m already formulating my smart-ass greeting for when I call Jasper when my phone vibrates in my hand. I glance down and groan. I take a deep breath and hit send.

 

“Hi, Dad.”

 

“J.R.?”

 

My temper flares up immediately when I hear him call me that old nickname from my childhood. Hell, I went by it until I went away to college. But now I hate it and everything it stands for. “Nobody calls me that anymore, Dad. It’s Edward now.”

 

He exhales in exasperation. “I can’t call you Edward. _I’m_ Edward.”

 

“Well, we don’t exactly live in the same house anymore, Dad. I’m sure people will keep us straight.”

 

He makes a vague sound of irritation, but he lets it go. “Am I interrupting you? Are you studying?”

 

Squeezing my eyes shut, I swallow a groan and squash down the momentary flare of guilt. “No, I’m not studying. I’m heading out to work right now.

 

Even though I don’t owe him an explanation, I decide to leave out the fact that I’m not taking any classes this semester. I’ll get around to telling him eventually, but I’m really not in the mood to listen to a rant from him this morning.

 

“Oh, I see. Still working at that little bookshop, then?”

 

I scowl, hearing the implied criticism in his words. He’s said it all before. Plenty of times. I know exactly how he feels about the book store. I’m wasting my time, refusing to live up to my potential, settling for mediocrity.

 

I want to tell him to shut the fuck up about it, but I keep quiet. I’ve said it before and it doesn’t do any good. “Yeah,” I say instead. “Still the bookstore.”

 

He pauses for a minute. “You know, as soon as you’re ready to apply yourself again, I can make some phone calls and get you set up with a good internship. Something that will really challenge you.”

 

I stifle a laugh. An internship would require me to still be enrolled in the business program at UW, and I haven’t been for a long time. I’ve managed to take a couple of general education classes each semester but then absolutely nothing this semester.

 

Does that make me a college drop-out? It hadn’t occurred to me until just now. I happened to look at the calendar a few months back and realize that I’d missed the deadline for registration and I didn’t even care. Maybe I’ll take a class next semester. Or maybe not. I don’t give a fuck.

 

“I don’t know, Dad. I like the bookstore. It’s enough for now.”

 

He snorts and even though he’s not in front of me, I can see the displeasure and the disapproval all over his face like he is. “For now. You’re not getting any younger, Edward. This… gap in your studies won’t be easily explained away when you start applying for real positions, when you’re finally ready to pursue your career.”

 

I don’t know how to tell him that I have no intention of ever applying for the kind of jobs he’s envisioning, so there won’t be anything to explain. When that conversation finally happens, there aren’t enough adjectives to adequately describe the meltdown he will have. I don’t really feel like launching into it right now, though, so I redirect him.

 

“I’m running late, Dad. Did you call about something specific?”

 

“Oh, right. I just wanted to remind you that it’s Jane’s birthday next week.”

 

I’m silent. I’m trying hard not to laugh out loud. Is he serious with this shit? Jane? I haven’t even _met_ the piece of ass he’s currently shacked up with and he actually expects me to go buy her a birthday present or send her some flowers or some shit like she’s my new mommy or something? It’s never going to happen.

 

“Uh… duly noted,” I mutter. I’m at my car now, and I dully pound on the roof in frustration. I’m so ready to be done with this conversation. “Gotta go, Dad.”

 

“Alright. I’ll talk to you soon.”

 

“Right.”

 

I drop down heavily into the driver’s seat and fling my phone down next to me. All the euphoria from last night is officially gone.

 

I cheer up a little once I get to work. Carlisle is behind the counter manning the register and he’s so genuinely happy to see me that it’s hard to stay pissed off.

 

“Edward! Good morning!”

 

I stop at the counter and set down one of the paper cups I’m holding.

 

“I got you a tea when I stopped for coffee,” I tell him. “Let me go dump my stuff in back and I’ll take over out here.”  
  


Carlisle smiles in delight, like it’s the most unexpected surprise, even though I stop at the coffee shop nearly every day on my way in, and I always get him a hot tea. “That was very nice of you, Edward. Take your time getting settled.”

 

I head to the backroom where I stash my messenger bag in a corner on top of a stack of boxes. It’s a mess back here. Carlisle keeps saying he’s going to go through all this old back stock and inventory, maybe get rid of some stuff that’s never going to sell, but it never seems to happen. Guess it’s not my problem though. I’m only here to stock the shelves and run the register and that’s just the way I like it.

 

Carlisle slides off the stool behind the register, making room for me as I come around behind the counter. He’s in his early fifties and American, but something about him always makes you think he’s English, despite the lack of an accent. And it’s more than his passion for strong black tea—he’s got a natural reserve and soft-spoken demeanor that seems perfectly suited to running a little independent bookstore. This one is just off the campus of UW in Seattle, but he could just as easily be running the same store in an English village. Both the shop and Carlisle just seem to belong there.

 

“How was your night last night?” he asks as I get set up. “You were going out with Jasper, weren’t you?”

 

I can’t help the smile that creeps across my face. Last night? Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. But all I say is, “It was good.”

 

“Glad to hear it. It’s been quiet so far this morning,” he says. It’s always quiet on Sundays. It’s pretty quiet in Sunset Books most of the time. I’ve always suspected that it does just enough business to pay for itself and no more. Esme, Carlisle’s wife, is a really successful shrink and they live pretty comfortably on her money. Sunset Books is just Carlisle’s labor of love.

 

“Anything you want me to take care of up here?” I could just kick back and read or surf the web on my phone when it’s quiet at the register, but I like to put in my time at the store. Carlisle’s always been really good to me and I want to make sure to do right by him.

 

“Oh, there are a couple of special orders there that you could track down for me. Thanks, Edward.”

 

“No problem.”

 

Carlisle takes his tea and retreats to the back of the store to work on shipping. I retrieve the notebook where we record special orders and jump online to deal with it. After I finish up, I remember a snippet of my conversation with Bella last night—that she’d been in the store before and knew Carlisle. Thinking back on it, it was probably that one little detail that put me in the category of someone she thought she could trust. Because I knew Carlisle, she somehow felt like I was on the level.

 

Curiosity gets the better of me and I flip back through the notebook a few pages, skimming for her name. There’s no Bella but two months ago, there were three books ordered for an Isabella Swan and I wonder if that’s her. Isabella Swan ordered _The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition_ _by_ M. H. Abrams, _After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy_ _by_ Catherine Pickstock _, and The Rhetoric of Fiction_ _by_ Wayne C. Booth.

 

Well, damn. If that’s her, she reads some heavy shit. I snap the book closed and stuff it under the register.

 

The day passes slowly. There are just a few customers trickling through all afternoon, mostly regulars who like to come and browse for hours. I leave the register to go re-stock shelves, figuring those people are comfortable enough to come find me if they actually want to buy something. I lose myself in the quiet, repetitive restocking, just focused on sorting by genres and alphabetizing by authors’ names. I’m grateful for the peace in the bookstore. It’s just easier to breathe here. Life is simple and straightforward when I’m at work. My brain doesn’t get all bogged down in all the shit that exists outside.

 

When the restocking is done and it’s really slow, I pull out my phone and think about calling Bella. I even go so far as to save her number and type in her name as an actual contact. I will call her; I’ve already decided that much, if for no other reason than she was so damned sure I wouldn’t. I don’t like anyone thinking that badly of me. I get enough of that from my father.

 

But as I consider calling her, I realize that it’s really soon. If I call her now then it looks like I’m pursuing some big serious relationship, and I’m not. That’s the last thing I’m looking for, the last thing I can handle. My plan right now is that I have no plan, and you need to bring a lot more to the table than that for a regular relationship. So I’ll call her, but not today.

 

Besides, maybe she won’t even want to hear from me. When I think about the previous night—her holding me at arms’ length and trying to run away in the middle of the night—I wonder if maybe _she’s_ done with _me_. Maybe she scratched her itch and a phone call from me will just be an embarrassing reminder of something she’d rather forget.

 

I guess I won’t know until I call her. Which I’ll do. But not today.

 

Jasper is sprawled on the couch watching football when I get home.

 

“Hey,” I say, dropping my keys on the counter and heading into the kitchen for a beer.

 

“Hey,” he mutters.

 

I come back in the room and drop down onto the other end of the couch. “So… how’s Maria?”

 

He groans and throws his head back. “Don’t even say her fucking name to me.”

 

“Does that mean nothing… ah, got rekindled last night?”

 

He lifts his head and squints at me sideways. “We sat in her car in the parking lot and talked. For _three fucking hours_.”

 

I can’t help it. I start laughing. “Why the hell did you stay there for three hours?”

 

“I couldn’t get away! She was crying and everything! She was trying to figure out how we went wrong and why it didn’t work out…” He lets out a dramatic shudder of distaste.

 

“You went out with her for like, two weeks, right? What’s to work out? Hell, you just _talked_ longer than you actually dated.”

 

“Well, according to her, we were soul mates or something, but I’m too _damaged_ to be in a mature relationship. And it breaks her heart that I can’t open myself up to the possibility of her love.” Jasper air-quotes ‘damaged’ and rolls his eyes at the rest of his sentence. “The only thing damaged about that set-up was that I ever slept with her in the first place. Edward, you’re supposed to be my friend. You need to keep me from doing shit like that.”

 

“Me? I tried to stop you last night. You said you could handle it.”

 

“You did _not_ try and stop me! You were too busy flirting your ass off with the bartender. Although you must have eventually scored with somebody, since I saw a purse by the front door when I came in and I’m guessing it wasn’t yours.”

 

I shake my head and try to keep my self-satisfied grin under control. Jasper sits up sharply.

 

“Dude, you did _not_.”

 

“Get laid? I did.”

 

“With who? You did _not_ get over with the bartender. That shit just doesn’t _happen_.”

 

“It happens. It happened.”

 

Jasper reaches out and smacks my arm. “She was here last night? You’re not shitting me?”

 

“Not shitting you.”

 

“Holy… you must have whipped out some epic lines on her. What did you say?”

 

“Um…” And suddenly I’m not really sure what I said. In retrospect, I kind of can’t believe that it happened—that I asked her to come home with me and she did it. I don’t know what it was about me or us or my words that convinced her to do it. There doesn’t seem to be a really good reason for it. The feeling makes me uneasy, like I just got away with something I had no business getting near, so I ignore it. “We just talked. Stuff happened.”

 

Jasper seems to sense that he’s not getting anymore out of me and flops back on the couch.

 

“Well, damn. You gonna see her again?”

 

“I don’t know. I got her number and I’ll call her, but… I don’t know.”

 

“You think she won’t go out with you again?”

 

I shrug and take a sip of my beer, trying to focus on the game on TV.

 

I don’t know. I don’t know when I’ll call her, or if she wants to hear from me. I don’t know what I want from her or what, if anything, she wants from me. I just don’t know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Her Lips

**  
**

It’s eight in the evening and I’m restless. Jasper isn’t home and I have no idea where he is. His job, teaching music classes to little kids at a ritzy private school, ended hours ago. He didn’t mention plans, but who knows? Maybe Maria got her claws in him and is torturing him with three more hours of dead relationship dissection.

 

There’s nothing good on TV. I think about going out, but it’s a Monday, so I quickly discard that idea. I think about calling people and scroll through my contacts . Most of the guys I was friends with in college left town when they graduated, and the ones that are still here aren’t really that much fun to hang out with these days. They’ve moved on to other stuff. They have jobs and fiancées and mortgages. I have nothing in common with them anymore.

 

I skim past the girls in my cell phone and rule out each one in turn. Girls that will want too much, like Maria. Girls that I never should have hooked up with in the first place. And the ones that I was friends with and liked are the same as my guy friends now. They’ve moved on and settled down. No time for or interest in guys like me.

 

It’s starting to feel like I’m the only one left here, in some sort of suspended animation and I wonder when exactly it was that life passed by me so completely. Then again, that life, back when I was a business major on a track with a plan, seems like somebody else’s life now anyway. I suppose in reality, I’m the one who left it behind.

 

I’m bored and restless and the longer I sit here alone, the darker my thoughts get. I need to do something, talk to someone. I keep going back to Bella. It’s been two days. _Long enough? I don’t care. Long enough._ I hit send.

 

Her voice is hesitant when she answers, probably because she doesn’t recognize my number. “Hello?”

 

“Bella?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Um, it’s Edward. From… the other night?”

 

“Oh. Hi. Wow.” Her voice is a little breathy and stunned. It makes me smile because I just shocked the hell out of her. I like defying her expectations.

 

“You didn’t think I was going to call, did you?”

 

“No! I mean… well, yeah, I didn’t really. What’s up?”

 

I chuckle a little. “What are you doing?”

 

“Right now? Working. Well, my shift is about to start.”

 

I picture her in the same black shirt and pants she wore to work on Saturday. I picture taking them off her. I have to take a deep breath before I can speak again and I hope that I don’t sound like a disgusting creeper panting on the phone.

 

“You want to hang out later?”

 

“Tonight?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I’m on till last call.”

 

“So? Come over after.” I drop my voice a little and talk softer, trying to lure her in just the way I did on Saturday. She’s so brusque and skittish. It’s like soothing a wild animal talking to her.

 

She sighs and pauses for a minute and I resist the urge to fist-pump, because I know she’s thinking about it. I know this is probably as difficult a decision for her as Saturday was, because there’s no mistaking what this is about. I’m asking her to come over to my place at two in the morning. We’re not going out to dinner or any other romantic shit. I’m asking her to come over here and sleep with me again. I hold my breath, waiting to see if she will.

 

“It will be really late,” she says softly. I can hear her resolve weakening.

 

“I don’t care. I’m just hanging out at home. Come over whenever you get done.”

 

“I don’t know…”

 

“Come on,” I coax. “Just come over. I want to see you again.”

 

Another sigh and a pause. I hold my breath. “I’ll call you if I’m not too tired when I’m done.”

 

I smile broadly, even though she can’t see it. “Okay. Call me. I’ll be up.”

 

She exhales hard. “Talk to you later.”

 

Once I hang up, I do fist-pump. Just once.

 

I lied when I said I’d be up. I watch TV and end up dozing off at some point. My phone buzzing on the coffee table wakes me up.

 

“Hey,” I answer.

 

“Hey. You still awake?”

 

I rub the heel of my hand into my eye. “Yeah, I’m up. Are you coming over?  
  


She pauses for a while before she answers. “Yeah. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

 

“Great. See you soon.”

 

I scurry around, grabbing Jasper’s dirty t-shirt off the back of the couch and my sneakers by the front door. I don’t know why I’m cleaning up. It’s not like we’re hanging out in here. Not if I have anything to say about it anyway.

 

A few minutes later, there’s a soft knock at the door, just three quick raps. When I open it, Bella’s standing there in her uniform of bartender black, her hand fisted around the strap of her bag on her shoulder. Her eyes are wide and she looks nervous. I smile broadly, hoping to relax her.

 

“Hey. Come in.”

 

“Hi.” She smiles, but it’s tight and polite.

 

“Can I get you a drink? I know you just spent all night around alcohol, but do you want a beer?”

 

“Actually, yeah. A beer would be good.”

 

She follows me into the kitchen and I fish one out of the fridge for her. She twists the top off herself. Of course.

 

“How was work?”

 

She shrugs. “The usual. Except no pushy patron pouring his drinks out in the bathroom all night to get my attention.”

 

“I’m sorry to hear that. Or maybe I’m glad. I don’t know. You work with your friend Mike tonight?”

 

She’s taking a long swig of her beer, and still manages to roll her eyes in the middle of it. “He’s _not_ my friend, no matter how much he wishes otherwise.”

 

“I was picking up on that. Poor guy.”

 

“Ugh. If you had to avoid his clammy grabby hands as often as I do, you’d have no pity.”

 

“You need to unleash those mad ninja fighting skills that you were boasting about on him.”

 

“Boasting?”

 

I shrug and shift my weight so I’m a little closer to her. She’s leaning back on the kitchen counter. She’s relaxed considerably since she came in and right now she’s almost smiling.

 

“Well, you were boasting about them to _me_.”

 

“I was _warning_ you.” She pokes her beer bottle at my chest, grinning.

 

“Hey, and didn’t I turn out to be completely harmless?”

 

She gives me a long look then cocks her eyebrow at me in that really cute way I like. “Harmless? I don’t know if I’d go _that_ far.”

 

“Well, not deadly.” I smile and lean down, until my face is close to hers.

 

She gives me a contemplative look. “No, not deadly. Just a little dangerous.”

 

I reach out and run a finger down her forearm, the first time I’ve touched her since she got here.

 

“I’m glad you came over.”

 

She looks down at my hand. I watch her lowered lashes make shadows on her pale cheeks. Her pouty bottom lip is wet from her beer and I want to lick it. “I think I might be, too,” she whispers.

 

I take a step into her, until I’m almost up against her, pinning her to the counter. She looks up, eyes a little hazy, mouth barely open. I reach out to hold onto her hips.

 

“Oh, you’ll be glad. I’ll make sure of it.”

 

God, all I do is brag to this girl about how I’m going to rock her world. But I’m pretty sure I did it the other night and I’m even more sure I can do it again tonight.

 

I lean in and kiss her. She’s warm and there’s the bitter bite of beer on her tongue. She reaches out blindly to the side and sets her beer on the counter before reaching up to grasp the back of my neck. Her fingertips feel cool from her bottle and it feels amazing when she runs them through the short hair on the back of my neck. It makes me groan and deepen the kiss immediately, but Bella follows me in, kissing back with just as much enthusiasm.

 

I really like kissing her. I love her mouth and how she kisses me. Soft, sweet nips and presses alternating with deep and hot. I’m so turned on and I never get so turned on just from kissing. Maybe it’s the dance I’ve had to do around her, the way I’ve had to work so hard to worm my way in. It heightens the suspense, so that when I finally do touch her, even just a kiss, it’s enough to make me explode.

 

Sliding my hands down from her waist to her ass, I lift until she’s sitting on the counter. I drag my hands down her thighs to her knees and slowly push them apart, making room for myself. She lets me in and then wraps her legs around my hips. She might have been hesitant the first night, but tonight it’s clear that she came over here with one intention, the exact one I have. I can tell by the way she hooks her calves around the backs of my thighs and pulls me in tighter, the way her hands twist in my hair and pull, the way she grinds herself into me.

 

I’ve got my hands up the back of her shirt. I’m not groping her, not yet. My hands are just splayed across her bare back, pulling her into me. My fingertips are brushing the bottom edge of her bra and I’m just about to move up and unhook it when I hear muted laughter and a key turning in our lock.   
  


Bella gasps and freezes. I reach down to grab her hips and hold her still. It’s just Jasper and I don’t want her getting all freaked out and awkward. I don’t even move out of the cage of her legs, even though she’s loosened her grip and put some space in between us.

 

I hear Jasper’s voice call out, “Alice, wait up!”

 

A girl stumbles into the hallway just outside the kitchen door. She’s laughing, and Jasper is behind her just a second later, laughing, too. She’s nearly doubled over she’s laughing so hard, and Jasper reaches out a hand to her waist to steady her. She’s a tiny thing, with a swing of short black hair half-obscuring her face. I give Jasper a questioning look just as he glances up and notices me and Bella in the kitchen.

 

Bella leans in and whispers in my ear. “I thought he called her Maria the other night.”

 

“That’s not Maria,” I whisper back.

 

“Oh, shit! Sorry, Edward. I didn’t know you’d be here. Or be up. Or have company.”

 

I chuckle. “No problem. You remember Bella from the other night?”

 

“Right, Bella. Hey, how are you?”

 

She’s still got her hands resting on my shoulders and I’m standing between her thighs and Jasper asks how she is. I suppress an eye-roll. Bella gives him a tight nod. “Good. You?”

 

“Good. We were just going to… oh, shit. This is Alice. Alice, this is Edward and his, um, friend, Bella.”

 

Alice sobers up and stands upright. “Oh, you’re Edward! Jasper’s told me so much about you! Nice to meet you.”

 

Then I smile and shoot Jasper a look. _Really? Because he hasn’t told me a thing about you._ But all I say is, “Nice to meet you, Alice.”

 

“Alice just started teaching at the Academy,” he says, referencing the school where he teaches his music classes. “A bunch of us took her out for a drink after work and the night just got away from us.”

 

“So _far_ away!” Alice sings. She must be talking about some inside joke because they look at each other and they both bust up laughing.

 

Jasper’s laughter finally trails off. “So, we’ll just get out of your way.”

 

“No, no. We were just…” I glance at Bella to make sure she’s still on board with what I’m about to say. She smiles and drops her eyes. “Heading to my room.”

 

I step back and take her hand, helping her hop down off the counter. We step around Jasper and this girl, Alice. Bella gives them a little wave.

  
Nice to meet you,” she murmurs.

  
“You, too!” Alice says.

 

 Inside, I’m groaning at how this must look to Bella. Jasper was with one girl at the bar and is dragging in a different girl, a complete stranger, home with him tonight. It’s two in the morning and I’ve asked Bella over just to have sex with her. Jasper and I don’t come out of this looking too good. Neither one of us sleeps around as much as this makes us seem like we do. But Bella’s not bolting, so maybe she doesn’t care.

 

“We’ll keep it down,” Jasper murmurs with a smirk.

 

“So will we,” I say, reaching out to punch his bicep as I pass him.

 

I take Bella’s hand and lead her down the hall to my room. As I shut the door and turn on the bedside lamp, Bella wanders over to my desk, glancing idly at the stuff scattered across it. There’s not much. My laptop, a paperback I was reading, some bills. I don’t really work or study here and it shows. It’s not the room of a college student anymore. Now I’m just some guy.

 

“Sorry about that,” I say, not sure why I’m feeling the need to apologize. “We’re not really…” And there’s no good way to end that sentence.

 

But Bella just smiles and shrugs. “You don’t owe me an explanation.” She crosses back over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder, squeezing slightly.

 

“Well, we’re not as bad as all that made us look.” I wave a hand back towards the kitchen.

 

“You seem like a nice guy, Edward.” Her delivery is completely neutral, and I’m not sure how to take that. She doesn’t seem to expect anything of me, which is a good thing, I think, since I have nothing to give. She appears to be in this for just what it is. And I guess I’m glad about that. She seems pretty cool and I’m surprised that she’s not more demanding, asking for more from me. She seems like the kind of girl who’d want more.

 

But maybe it’s just what she said by the car the other night. _It’s been a long time._ Maybe she’s just lonely and wants to feel good. I have very little to offer, but I know I can make her feel good. So I guess I’m okay with being her feel-good guy, if that’s what she wants. I’m _more_ than okay with her being my feel-good girl. She makes me feel _really_ good.

 

“Not _too_ nice, I hope,” I finally say, running my hands down her back to grab her ass and pull her into me.

 

“No, not too nice,” she whispers as I duck my head to kiss the side of her neck. I back us up until her calves hit the side of the bed and we fall forward in a tangle. I don’t give her any time to regroup, I just attack. I’m kissing and stroking and pulling her shirt off her before she’s even caught her breath.

 

Tonight is faster, harder. We’re not entirely strangers at this point. And we both know how good this will be, so we waste no time getting to it. She doesn’t need any coaxing or reassurance and she pulls her clothes off herself when I take too long to do it. She pulls at mine too, and once I’m naked, she’s not shy about running her hands all over me.

 

I’m not as tightly-wound as I was the other night, so I let her touch me. She grasps me and strokes hard and I fall back on the bed, eyes closed. She’s not gentle about it, but I don’t want her to be. I want to take her without apology, so it’s only fair that she takes what she wants from me, too.

 

As good as her hands feel on me, I don’t want tonight to be about that so I push her back and do what I want to her. I taste all of her—her breasts, her hard little nipples, the taut, smooth skin of her stomach. I put my mouth between her thighs, like I’ve wanted to. She fists one hand in my hair and one in her own, eyes screwed shut, until I’m holding her hips down and she’s crying out, thrashing underneath me.

 

The rest is an urgent blur. We’re desperate and grabbing at each other. I’m on top of her, with her knee pushed nearly to her chest, and I’m so, so deep. I’m behind her and she’s on her knees, her hands hanging on to the headboard. I’m on my back as she straddles me and she comes again while she’s on top of me. And finally, I throw her back down on her back and push myself into her frantically until my whole body feels like it explodes inside of her.

 

When it’s done, we’re both sweaty and gasping for air. I feel euphoric and wasted. My muscles are shaky. I don’t even feel like I can stand up for a few minutes. I slide my hand across the sheets, looking for her. I find her wrist and hold onto it loosely, a wordless thanks for that experience. She’s pulling in deep breaths, eyes closed, face turned up to the ceiling.

 

Some endless time later, she groans and rolls to her side, hunting on the floor for her clothes again.

 

“Stay put,” I rasp out, because I really like sleeping curled up around her softness.

 

She sighs, sounding just as shaky and worn-out as me. It’s the middle of the night and she just worked a shift at the bar. She shouldn’t be driving home anyway. “I have class tomorrow.”

 

“So set the alarm on your phone. Just sleep here. It’s late.”

 

Her exhaustion must win over because she grabs the t-shirt I was wearing and shrugs it on before disappearing into the bathroom for a minute. When she comes back, she falls heavily onto the bed and I pull her by the waist until her back is tucked up against my front. Her hair smells nice and I bury my face in it. I have no control over the low groan of pleasure that escapes me as I settle in against her. Her soft answering chuckle is the sound I fall asleep to.

 

I must sleep like the dead because it feels like just minutes later when I come to a groggy semi-consciousness with Bella shifting beside me. She’s wiggling out from under my arm, scooting towards the edge of the bed.

 

“Jesus,” she mutters, “you’re like a full-body human Snuggie.”

 

I smile and consider saying something snarky back. I roll onto the warm spot that she’s left and sink back into sleep instead.

 

When I open my eyes again, Bella is moving around my room in a rush, dressing and talking softly on her phone.

 

“No, I’ll be there. I might be a few minutes late. You have the notes on the outline, right? Okay, good, so you can start and I’ll just jump in when I get there.”

 

She’s got her phone tucked under her chin as she buttons up her shirt. She gets to the one second from the bottom and curses quietly when she realizes it’s missing, a casualty of last night.

 

“I have to go. I’ll see you soon…” She chuckles in response to something said on her phone. “Yeah, we’ll talk about that later. Much later. ‘Kay, bye.”

 

She shuts off her phone and spins to stuff it into her bag and spots me, awake.

 

“Hey,” I say.

 

“Um, hey,” she mumbles, gathering up some of her things that spilled out of her bag.

 

“I had fun last night.”

 

She doesn’t look up, but I swear her cheeks get pink. It’s cute. “Me, too.”

 

“No time for coffee, huh?” I ask.

 

She glances up quickly in surprise and then looks back down, hooking her hair behind her ear. “No, sorry. I have to meet with my study group before class and I still have to go home and…” She trails off and waves a hand at herself. Then she rakes her hand through her hair, pulling it off her face. I think about how good it smelled last night and I wonder if my pillow still smells of her. But smelling my pillow would be decidedly weird, so I just watch as she shrugs into her jacket and pulls her shoes on.

 

“Can I call you again?”

 

She closes her eyes and lets out a little bark of laughter. “Sure, yeah. Okay. Why not?”

 

“Hey.” I reach out and grab her hand. “Do you feel weird about this? Because… I don’t know, I like this. I can’t really offer much _more_ than this, but this is pretty good, right?”

 

She sighs, looking conflicted. “It’s definitely good. And I’m not _looking_ for anything, but…”

 

“So, okay, then. Let’s keep doing what we’re doing. Because this is good. You’re a really good kisser.” I smile at the last part, teasing her a little, and she finally smiles too.

 

“Well, you already know I think you’re a good kisser.”

 

I pull on her hand until she leans over the bed. When I can reach, I slide my hand around the back of her head and kiss the side of her neck, avoiding her mouth since I haven’t brushed my teeth. “So maybe we should get together and kiss some more. Just a thought. You know, since we’re both so good at it.”

 

She chuckles in that low sexy way she has. “Yeah, okay. I wouldn’t be opposed to… um, doing some more _kissing_. It would be a shame to let all our mad skills go to waste.”

 

“You haven’t begun to experience all my skills.”

 

She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling and it’s wide and genuine. In this early morning light, with her face scrubbed clean, she’s so pretty and natural. “There you go again with all your smooth lines.”

 

“They worked, didn’t they?”

 

Her smile fades just a little and I want to kick myself. That probably made her feel really cheap. I open my mouth to apologize, but she talks first.

 

“They sure did.”

 

“Hey, it wasn’t…”

 

She holds her hand up to stop me. “Don’t. It is what it is, right? You don’t have to hold my hand and make me feel special.”

 

“But I shouldn’t have made you feel cheap, either.”

 

She smiles again and tips her chin down. Her hair falls forward, screening her face. She puts her hand over mine on the bed and squeezes gently.

 

“It’s okay. You didn’t.”

 

“You sure?” I reach my free hand up and brush her hair back over her shoulder again, so I can see her.

 

“I’m sure.”

 

“I guess I’ll call you then.”

 

“Alright. Call me.”

 

She leans forward and kisses my cheek—just a fleeting little peck—and the intimacy of it startles me for a second, especially when it’s so innocent compared to everything else we’ve done. Then she shoots to her feet, pulling out her keys in a rush. All her pensive calm of just a second ago is gone and she’s back in rapid-fire mode. She’s so _busy_. Her efficiency and energy are making me feel lazy. She seems to know exactly what she’s doing at every moment. Except for the ones she spends with me. Maybe that’s what she likes about this. There’s no plan for any of it.

 

She’s at the door with her hand on the knob when she spins back around, eyes wide.

 

“What is it?’ I ask her. “What’s wrong?”

 

“I don’t know your last name,” she breathes. “Jesus, we’ve had sex… more than once… and I never even asked your last name!”

 

I laugh and hold a hand out to placate her. “Hey, it’s okay. Calm down. Masen. It’s Edward Masen. Okay?”

 

“Yeah, okay. Sorry for the freak-out. It’s just…”

 

“It’s okay.”

 

She looks up, smiling. “Mine is—”

 

“Swan.”

 

She blinks twice. “How did you know?”

 

I smile at her. “The bookstore. Special orders, remember? I saw your name.”

 

“Right. The bookstore. Okay, now I really do have to go. Bye, Edward Masen.”

 

“Bye, Isabella Swan.”

 

And then she’s gone. I roll back onto my side and curl her pillow into my chest. Yeah, it still smells like her hair. I fall asleep for a few more hours before I have to get up and get ready for work.

 

The apartment is quiet as I shower and dress, but Jasper wanders into the kitchen while I’m in there. We eye each other speculatively.

 

“Your friend still here?” I ask.

 

He shakes his head. “She had to teach this morning. Yours?”

 

“She had class.”

 

“So you just met Alice yesterday?”

 

He holds up a hand. “Believe it or not, we didn’t even do anything last night. We just talked.”

 

“You’ve been doing that a lot lately with girls, huh? _Talking._ ”

 

He rolls his eyes. “This is _nothing_ like Maria. I don’t know… I really like her. A lot.”

 

“Already?”

 

“Yeah. It just feels right. I can’t explain it.” He pauses and reaches up to run a hand through his shaggy hair, fisting it absently. He’s talking to me, but his eyes are unfocused as he stares into the middle distance. “I only really talked to her for the first time yesterday, but I swear, it’s like I’ve known her my whole life. And it’s so _easy_ to talk to her. I can say anything and she just gets it. I haven’t felt that way… well, _ever_.”

 

“Wow.”

 

“I know. _Wow_.”

 

Except Jasper’s wow isn’t the same as mine. I’m shocked— he’s in awe.

 

“So what about you?” he says after a minute.

 

“What about me?”  
  


He raises his eyebrows at me. “Bella? She’s been over here twice now. So?”

 

I shrug. “So? We’re hanging out.”

 

“Are you guys, like, seeing each other now or something?”

 

I snort in laughter. “More like ‘and something’, I think.”

 

“She seems nice.”

 

“She is, I guess.”

 

“You seem to like her.”

 

“I barely know her.”

 

“Well, you could maybe _try_ to know her.”

 

“Jasper, quit trying to pair me up just because you think you’ve met the one.”

 

“Look, I’m just saying…”

 

“What? What are you just saying?” I don’t mean to snap at him, but the pressure is making me tense. For Christ’s sake, Bella isn’t pressuring me for anything. Why does Jasper think _he_ should?

 

He sighs and his shoulders drop. “Nothing. Just… it seems like it could be a good thing for you, that’s all.”

 

“There’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing a girl could fix, anyway.”

 

“Whatever you say, Edward. Look, my first class isn’t until one so I’m going back to bed.”

 

“Yeah, see you later.”

 

He shuffles out of the room. I stand there another few minutes, working a hand through my hair and trying to sort out exactly why I feel so pissed off. In the end, I don’t work it out. It doesn’t matter. I just push it aside and leave for work.

 

 

**  
**

 

 


	4. Her Voice

**  
**

 

Jasper basically disappears for the rest of the week. I see him sometimes in the morning, if we’re getting ready for work at the same time. But after work, he takes off with Alice and I don’t see him again until the next morning—if then. He doesn’t talk much about her, but his face tells the story. He’s distracted and smiling too much.

 

Without Jasper to hang out with, the sorry state of my social life is hard to ignore. I don’t have any real friends left in Seattle any more. I only still have Jasper because we’re roommates and he’s single like me.

 

But now that he’s sort of not, sometimes it feels like I’m the last person alive on the planet. Everybody around me had a plan, moved on, grew up. I’m still here, in the same apartment I lived in when I was a student, working the same job I used to work part-time when I was a student, except now the job is my whole day. And I’m not a student anymore.

 

I’m annoyed with myself for feeling so cut-off and adrift, but at the same time, I don’t _want_ a plan. I don’t _want_ to do the shit the rest of them are doing. I like the little no-stress niche I’ve carved out for myself here. I like the bookstore, and I like Carlisle. I want what I’m doing right now to be enough and I don’t like this feeling that it’s not.

 

On Wednesday after the store closes, I go out with a couple of the other people that work there part-time. Peter is an English major; Charlotte is poly-sci and helps Carlisle with the bookkeeping. He’s been after me to learn the programs and take it over, but I’m into that idea about as much as I’m into his idea of making me the manager of the store, which is to say, not much at all. So he’s brought in Charlotte for a few hours a week to bear the brunt of the bookkeeping.

 

We grab burgers and beers at a sports bar near the bookstore. It’s enjoyable enough until I pick up on the vibe from Peter regarding Charlotte. When I’m at the bar getting another pitcher for us to share, Peter corners me and asks me if I’m into her. She’s cute enough, but I’m not and he’s ridiculously relieved when I tell him that. After that, it’s clear that my only role here is to keep the night from seeming like a date until Peter gets the balls to make it one. By the time I get home, my mood is fouler than before we went out.

 

Thursday is no improvement. My mother calls. It’s two in the afternoon, but she sounds like she’s been drinking already. When I was growing up, my dad used to tease my mom about the fact that one glass of wine at the Millers’ Christmas party would get her tipsy. Now, since they split up, she’s buzzed most days by the end of lunch and drunk by dinner. I make it a rule never to call after four. Actually, I make it a rule not to call at all. I wait for her to call me. If I call her, I risk some strange guy answering the phone and that’s just more than I can handle.

 

She’s pretty lucid when she calls today. The only thing that gives her away is the way her voice shoots up a little too high at the ends of her sentences.

 

“Edward, it’s Mom,” she says, because she never remembers that her name comes up on my phone before I answer. At least she remembers that I go by Edward now, which is better than my father.

 

“Hi, Mom. How are you?” I’d rather not ask, but I feel like I have to.

 

“I’m fine, sweetie,” she says brightly. Then she spends the next five minutes telling me all the ways in which she’s not fine. She’s been getting headaches and she’s seeing a massage therapist and a chiropractor, but neither of them can do much about them. When I suggest taking some Aleve, she protests that she hates putting chemicals in her body. I tactfully don’t bring up the Xanax she takes or the bottle of wine she washes them down with regularly. She complains about the guy she’s seeing now, whose name is Rick. I thought it was Steve, but I’m clearly behind by a boyfriend or two.

 

I hate that this is what she’s become. When I was a kid, all my friends wished my mom was their mom, and I took an enormous amount of pride in the fact that she was mine. In my eyes, she was just about the perfect woman. She was always busy and she knew how to do everything effortlessly. She always looked pretty and dressed nice. She was so confident and she was always smiling. Whenever I got home from school, she was cooking something great for dinner, or baking for the P.T.A bake sale, or doing volunteer work for the Ballet Guild or the Library Boosters. She was the mother all the other mothers envied.

 

Apparently, that was all a lie though. She says she was never really that perfect person, she was just playing a part. She’s spent the last five years “finding herself”. All that seems to amount to is falling into bed drunk every night and wasting herself on a string of loser boyfriends, none of whom is remotely good enough for her. I hate it. I hate thinking about it and I don’t know what to do to change it, so mostly I avoid it—her—when I can. I’m good at that. Avoiding is my whole life.

 

The one good thing about my mother, though, as opposed to my father, is that she doesn’t really give me a hard time about my life and my “future”. I’ve figured out that it’s mostly because she forgets to care about it, but still, it’s nice not to be grilled every phone call. Not that she doesn’t pester me about other things.

 

“How is Jasper?” she asks.

 

“Good. The same.”

 

“Does he still work at that school?”

 

“Yeah, he does. It’s a good gig.”

 

“Good. I’m so glad to hear it. Is he still single? Honestly, I’ve never understood the two of you. Such good-looking, smart boys and you can never seem to find girlfriends.”

 

I roll my eyes and shake my head. If only she knew that finding girlfriends was never the problem; it’s avoiding them. Except that now Jasper seems to be embracing the idea whole-heartedly.

 

I sigh. “Jasper’s seeing somebody, I think.”

 

“Oh, good! Finally! Is it serious? Is she nice?”

 

“Um,” I think back to the one time that I met Alice, when she was stumbling in the door with Jasper at two a.m., drunk, and I was about to drag a girl back to my room for no-strings sex. “I only met her once. She seemed nice enough. I don’t know how serious they are. They just met.”

 

“Sometimes you just know right away, though,” she says with a dreamy little sigh. It’s ridiculous hearing my mother gush over fairy-tale love stories, considering how her own turned out. “So that leaves just you now, right? There’s no one special in your life, Edward?”

 

“Mom…”

 

“I know, I know. No young man wants to talk to his mother about the woman in his life. But I do wish you’d meet someone and settle down. I hate the thought of you being alone. The right girl could make you so happy.”

 

I can’t help it. I don’t mean to say it, but it just comes out. “Like Dad did for you?” I can hear her sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone. _Fuck._ I close my eyes and drop my head back in defeat. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. I shouldn’t…”

 

“No, no.” Her voice is high and strained. “We didn’t set the best example for you in that sense. But you can be happy, Edward. If you want to be.”

 

Now I feel even worse. But telling my mother that the “right girl” is the last thing I need in my life isn’t going to make it any better, so I keep my mouth shut. “Listen, Mom, I have plans tonight, so….” It’s a total lie, but I want off the phone.

 

“Of course, of course. I didn’t mean to keep you. Keep in touch, Edward. And come visit me soon.”

 

“Sure. Yeah, I will,” I say, even though I won’t. The nice house on Mercer Island that I grew up in, that I considered home is gone anyway, sold off in the divorce. I don’t need to go see my mother in her cramped one-bedroom apartment so I can be reminded of that.

 

After I hang up with my mom, I feel restless and uneasy. I don’t want to think about this. I don’t want to think about anything. But the apartment is empty and there’s no hint of Jasper materializing again tonight.

 

I scroll through my phone to Bella’s number and don’t let myself over-think it before I hit send.

 

“Hey.” Her voice is soft and straightforward. She knows it’s me, so she must have programmed me into her phone.

 

“Hey. What are you doing?”

 

“Right now? Reading.”

 

“No, tonight. Are you busy?”

 

She pauses and thinks about it. She thinks I’m calling her just to come over here and sleep with me. And maybe that _is_ what I want. I want to sleep with her. I’m always going to want that. But suddenly my long empty night is stretching ahead of me, making me feel dismal and alone and I want her here. Here, and not just in my bed. That’s what makes me open my mouth and start filling the heavy silence.

 

“Because I was wondering if you wanted to hang out. Maybe get something to eat.”

 

“Hang out?” She sounds baffled.

 

“Yeah. We could maybe watch a movie, order some food… whatever.” I roll my eyes and bang my head into the back of the couch. I sound like a nervous fifteen-year-old.

 

“Oh.”

 

That’s all she says.

 

After a second, I prompt her. “Oh? Is that ‘oh, yes’ or ‘oh, no’?”

 

“Um, well…”

 

“Come on,” I coax her. It seems like I’m always trying to draw her in. “Just come hang out with me.”

 

I can hear her exhale through the phone. “Okay. I need to finish up this paper I’m working on right now, so maybe eight? Is that okay?”

 

I smile broadly, even though I’m not sure why. “Yeah, eight’s great. See you then.”

 

 

*0*0*

 

“Do you have any parmesan cheese?”

  
I turn around to see Bella burrowed deep into the fridge.

 

“Um, maybe on the door? Why?”

 

She lets out a little happy sound when she finds it and straightens back up. “To put on the pizza,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

 

“It’s already got cheese on it.”

 

She rolls her eyes. “Mozzarella. That’s _one_ kind. It’s better with two kinds.”

 

Now I roll my eyes at her, but I stand aside as she doctors her pizza slice with not only mozzarella, but also pepper and some old dried basil she finds in our cabinets. One of Jasper’s ex-girlfriends must have bought that because there’s no way either of us would have.

 

“You wouldn’t need to add so much stuff if you ate pepperoni pizza like a normal person.”

 

She elbows me before carrying her plate and her beer past me into the living room. “This is better,” she calls back over her shoulder. I poke at the prosciutto and fresh tomatoes on my pizza. It might have been a mistake when I told her to “order what you want”.

 

I join her out on the couch and take a bite. Okay, it’s good. Really good.

 

“This is good,” I mutter around a bite.

 

She smiles. Smirks, really. “Told you. So what do you want to watch?”

 

“There’s that new one on Pay-Per-View. You know the one with Mark Wahlberg?”

 

“Uh, sure. Fine.”

 

Too late, I remember the brainiac books she may have special ordered at the store and second-guess the movie choice. She probably likes foreign films or something. But she’s not complaining so I go ahead and start the movie. She’s a little quiet at first, but once she finishes eating, she curls up in the corner of the couch and looks reasonably happy.

 

Within thirty minutes, I’ve decided that this movie sucks. It’s amazing that all that money can turn out such an unwatchable piece of trash, and that’s what I say out loud after a particularly bad special effect.

 

“Oh, good, you think so, too,” she says, loosening up as she laughs.

 

“I mean, Jesus, that explosion was like a nuclear assault and that warehouse looked barely burned when the smoke cleared.”

  
“And the _dialogue_ ,” Bella rolls her eyes, “It’s like a bunch of bad Chuck Norris memes all strung together. Nothing but raging testosterone and declarative sentences.”

 

“Fuck it. Let’s see if there’s something on TV.”

 

I start channel surfing, but within moments, Bella scrambles across the couch, closing the distance between us, snatching the remote out of my hand.

  
“Wait!” she shouts, “Go back!”

 

She flips back a couple of channels to PBS, where two old white guys are sitting in arm chairs, talking like on a chat show.

 

“What is this?”

 

“Hmmm?” She doesn’t even glance away from the TV. “Oh… sorry. That’s just—he’s a writer I’m studying in one of my classes. I didn’t know he did this interview.”

 

She seems to remember herself and starts flipping channels again.

 

“Do you want to watch it?”

 

Now she looks at me with a little embarrassed smile. “No, it would be really boring for you. I’ll look it up online tomorrow.”

 

“You sure?”

 

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

 

“Oh, look, _The Usual Suspects_.”

 

“I love this movie,” she says.

 

“Really?” I twist to look at her. “Me, too.”

 

She turns to look at me, too. For all the time we’ve spent together, and how close we’ve been physically, it’s the first real personal connection we’ve had and it gives me a frisson of nerves, almost like I’m uncomfortable. Her eyes are darting back and forth between mine and I think it makes her edgy, too. On impulse, I reach out a hand and lay it on her thigh because a physical connection is something I understand. Her shoulders relax a little and she leans back into the couch. I slouch down next to her, our shoulders touching, my hand still on her thigh.

 

“So when did you figure out who Keyser Söze was?” I ask.

 

She laughs. “Not until the very end. I’m so bad with stuff like that. What about you?”

 

“I guessed in that flashback to when his family was killed.”

 

She rolls her head on the couch cushions to look at me. “Really? You guessed _then_?”

 

“Well, at first I thought it was that guy… the lawyer….”

 

“Pete Postlethwaite.”

 

“Right. I thought it was him. But that would have been too obvious. So then I thought it might have been Gabriel Byrne, except I couldn’t figure out how that fit in with him being a cop. I don’t know… Kevin Spacey was just too nice. Never trust the nice guy.”

 

She laughs. “So cynical.”

 

“Yeah, a little. So not until the end, huh? I though you were a super-genius or something.”

 

She elbows me lightly. “I’m not a super-genius, just an overworked grad student. And in my defense, I was twelve the first time I saw it.”

 

“Twelve?”

 

“It’s my dad’s favorite movie.”

 

“Your dad the cop?”

 

“Yeah. Funny, since the criminal mastermind walks away scot-free at the end. But he likes mysteries and this is his favorite. We watch it a lot.”

 

She leans into me a little and I scoot further down. It’s nice, with her warm little body pressed against me and my hand on her leg. She doesn’t talk a lot during the movie, but she comments on the same things I do. I think I might like having her around, and not just when she’s naked.

 

We’re comfortable and content in our little movie-and-beer bubble when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I dig it out and glance at the number. I can’t help the groan as I see my father’s number flashing.

 

“Something wrong?” Bella asks, looking at my lit-up phone.

 

I stare at the flashing number for a second before I press the end button to silence it. “No, it’s just… that’s my dad, probably calling to remind me that I blew off his girlfriend’s birthday. Like I’m not aware of that.”

 

Bella is quiet for a minute, but I can feel her looking at me. “You don’t like her?”

 

I snort in disgust. “I don’t even _know_ her. Whatever. If his track record holds, she’ll only be around for a few more months before he ditches her. She’s _my_ age, for Christ’s sake.”

 

I drag my hand across my face, suddenly angry and depressed.

 

“I take it your parents are divorced, then?”

 

“Yeah. Divorced.”

 

I don’t elaborate and Bella is quiet. But it’s not the comfortable quiet of a minute ago. My irritation is filling the room. I hear Bella take a deep breath.

 

“Is it recent? Their divorce?”

 

I shrug. “I guess that depends on your perspective. It was just a few years ago, but had apparently been coming for years—much to _my_ surprise.”

 

I can feel her still watching me and when I glance over, she cocks her eyebrow at me, like she’s expecting me to elaborate. I almost want to smile at her, despite my foul mood. With her arched eyebrow and her comically pursed lips, she’s kind of adorable.

 

I inhale heavily. “You really want to hear this?”

 

She smiles and shrugs. “Sure. If you want to tell it.”

 

And I kind of do. I feel like I’ve been swallowing down all this shit about my parents for ages and I’m going to choke on it soon if I don’t let it out. So I do. It seems like once I start, I can’t say enough on the subject.

 

“When I was growing up, my parents were like some fucking golden couple. All my friends envied me. Hell, _I_ envied me. Our family was perfect, the one everybody else wished they belonged to.

 

“Then I go off to college, and near the end of my first year, out of the blue, my mother calls to tell me my dad moved out. And she’s so blasé about it, like telling me is just a formality or something. When I start asking her how long they’ve been having problems, she tells me that they’ve been miserable together for _years_ , but that they stuck it out for me, until I left home. Like they did me some huge fucking _favor_ or something. ‘Hey, Edward, your whole childhood has been a lie, but it was all for your benefit and aren’t you happy about that?’ I swear, she didn’t even get why I was pissed.”

 

“Well,” she says after a long pause, “I’m sure in her mind she thought they were saving you from the truth. Although it must really suck to realize they were so unhappy the whole time.”

 

“Yeah, it does suck. It’s like I question every memory of them I have from growing up. I thought we were happy, but were they just counting down the days till I was out of the way and they could be free?”

 

“Ouch,” Bella murmurs. Her hand closes over mine on her leg and she squeezes. Without thinking, I turn my hand over, palm up. Her fingers weave into mine.

 

“It would be one thing if they were both really happy now. I guess I could be glad about that. But since they split up, they’ve both turned into people I don’t even know anymore.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Like, my mother has all these boyfriends—they’re all losers and too young for her and they treat her horribly. She just puts up with their shit because she can’t stand being alone. It’s pathetic. She drinks too much, too. I can’t even deal with her now. And my dad…”

 

“What about him?” Bella’s still holding my hand and with her free hand, she’s dragging her fingertips back and forth across the back of my hand. I focus on how that feels and it’s good. It keeps me centered and I can talk about my parents without the usual anger and bitterness. I’m just reciting facts.

 

“He’s got the string of skanky girlfriends, which is bad enough, but he’s also turned into a total bastard. He was always kind of hard on me growing up. He had high standards and expected a lot, you know? But I guess my mother must have kept him in line. But now… he’s a fucking tyrant. He’s always had this plan that I would come work in his business one day, and when I started making it known that it wasn’t what _I_ wanted, he just turned on me. He only ever calls to chew me out and tell me what a failure I am.”

 

“Sorry. That’s awful that you feel like you’ve lost them both.”

 

“Not that I’ve lost them, exactly, but what was the point of it all? Twenty years of marriage, most of which was a lie, and now their lives apart are just as miserable. It’s like there was no point to any of it. Why did they even bother?”

 

Bella squeezes my hand. “There’s you. They got you out of it.”

 

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, you should ask my dad how happy he is about that these days. Unless I’m willing to become a carbon copy of him, there’s no point to me, either.”

 

Bella gives me a look like she wants to argue with me about that, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, a minute later, she pursues a different tack. “You said he wanted you to join his business? What does he do?”

 

“He runs this boutique investment firm with another guy. They started it up when I was in high school. I started out in the business program here at UW so that I could go to work for him one day. But the further in I got, the worse it felt. It was just not where I belonged. So finally, I quit the program. Right around the same time they split, actually. Shitty timing. That was a really bad year.”

 

“What did you end up majoring in, then?”

 

I reach up and rub the back of my neck, embarrassed for the first time ever about the status of my college education. “Well, I didn’t major in anything. I took a few classes a semester, but not full-time and I didn’t declare. Then I took this semester off.”

 

“So you dropped out?”

 

“I don’t know. I’ll probably finish. It’s just hard to see the point right now, you know?”

 

She nods, her eyes on her lap. Of course she doesn’t know. She’s a professional academic. What the hell does she know about dropping out of college?

 

“Sorry,” I say, covering my eyes with my hands and squeezing them shut. “That was a lot of shit to unload on you. I have no idea why I just told you all of that.”

 

“Hey, it’s cool. I asked you to.” I feel her shifting to face me more fully and she’s squeezing my hand. “I’m a good listener. I think it’s genetic. People just like unloading to me. I _am_ a bartender, remember?”

 

I lower my hand and turn my head on the back of the couch. “Happens a lot, then, huh?”

 

She rolls her eyes dramatically. “All the time. I really should go into espionage so I can do something profitable with all the juicy secrets I know.”

 

I laugh and she smiles.

 

“Maybe you can still change your major. Get your master’s in Espionage instead of English.”

 

“PhD.”

 

“What?”

 

“I’m getting my PhD, not my Master’s.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Bella shakes her head. “Anyway, just… you’re welcome to talk about any of that stuff with me. I’m happy to listen. I don’t know if I have any good advice to give you, though, since my parents are divorced, too.”

 

“They are?”

 

“Yeah, but since I was a little kid. They’re pretty cordial to each other now. Plus my mom lives in Florida and she’s remarried. I don’t think they’ve even been in the same room since I graduated college.”

 

“And when they split up, you stayed with your dad?”

 

“It was a little surprising, since my dad isn’t exactly the nurturing type. But my mother just wasn’t cut out for parenthood. It was better that I stayed with my dad. We did okay, although I had to raise myself a lot of the time.”

 

“That must have been rough for him.”

 

Bella nods her head, her face getting somber. “He’s pretty stoic about it and he’d never admit it, but it was. He did fine putting a roof over my head, but I think he always felt bad that I didn’t have a mother around. I didn’t miss it, but he still felt like I was lacking.” She sighs and looks at her hands. “He tried so hard to make up for it in other ways, you know? He doesn’t make a lot of money, but he worked crazy hours and saved like mad so I wouldn’t have to pay for undergrad. He never spent a dime on himself. He wanted to help with grad school, too, but I just couldn’t let him. Now it’s his turn.”

 

She’s a good person. Nice and so much more grateful for what she’s got than most people our age are. “That’s why you bartend?”

 

“Mmm-hmm. I could do work study or get a job assisting one of the professors, but that stuff pays shit. The hours at the bar are awful and I’m so tired after a shift, but the tips are great. It’s really hard to juggle it all, but I’m trying to avoid having student loans that I’ll never be able to pay off when I graduate, so it’s worth it.”

 

Now I feel like shit. Because the money for school was never really an issue for me. I’m cut off now, but at least while I was in school, I never had to sweat it. There was always plenty. And Bella’s working her ass off just to keep her head above water. She’s a better person than I am in so many ways.

 

“You’re so well-adjusted,” I say, at length. “You’re really okay with all of that? Your mom splitting, all of that? You don’t get pissed sometimes, or feel cheated?”

 

She smiles and shrugs. “It happened years and years ago. It’s all I know, so it’s no big deal. Not at all as bad as what you’re dealing with.”

 

I run my hand through my hair. “Whatever. It’s not really that big of a deal. I’m just bitching.” That’s a lie, but right now I want it to be true. After hearing Bella’s story, I feel like I’m just dwelling too much on shit that shouldn’t really matter.

 

“Well, you’re still allowed to bitch whenever you want.”

  
“Same for you.”

 

“Huh?”

 

I nudge her. “You’re welcome to unload, too. About school or work or whatever. You just gave me a free therapy session, so it’s only fair, right?”

 

She smiles, but she looks a little tense and her eyes aren’t meeting mine. I can’t quite put my finger on what’s caused the shift.   
  


Then I forget to question it, because she suddenly leans into me, bracing herself with one hand high on my thigh. Her small smile is kind of sexy and her eyes are half-closed.  
  


“I don’t want to bitch. I have other things I want to do instead.”

 

I smile, too, reaching out for her hips to steady her.

 

“What were you thinking of doing, I wonder?” I ask her playfully.

 

“I seem to recall that we decided we were really good at something.”

 

She leans further in to me, placing her other hand on my chest, and kisses me as her fingers curl into my shirt. I open my mouth under hers and her tongue darts in to touch mine. I sigh into her and lean back into the corner of the couch, pulling her with me, until she’s lying across me. I dig my fingers into her hair, which I really like, and angle her face over mine, kissing her deep and hard. Then I back off and kiss her softly, just warm, wet presses of my lips to hers. Her mouth is open slightly, and I pull her bottom lip between mine, sucking, scraping my teeth across it lightly. She moans.

 

“Mmm,” I hum in between kisses, “It’s the kissing. You know I like the kissing.”

 

I can feel her smile against my mouth before she kisses me again. “I like it, too.”

 

I skate my tongue across her bottom lip and she covers my mouth with hers. “My favorite,” I say, when we come up for air many minutes later.

 

“Your favorite, huh?” Bella says, her voice teasing.

 

I run my hands down her sides, pressing her hips into mine. “Mmm hmmm.”

 

“Well, then,” she kisses me and continues, “I guess we’ll just stick to this and I’ll forget about what else I had planned.”

 

I snake a hand back up her side to her hair, gripping the back of her neck. “Hold up. Not so fast. What exactly did you have planned?”

 

I try and use my hand to maneuver her mouth back to mine, but she’s already kissing my cheek, then the corner of my jaw, then my neck.

 

“Mmmm, kissing of a sort. I guess.”

 

“Just more kissing?”

 

I feel her tongue on my neck and close my eyes, tipping my head back so she can get at more of me.

 

“Yes, more kissing,” she whispers between nips on my neck. “You know, with my lips and my mouth and my… tongue.”

 

Her teeth close around my earlobe and I hiss, arching up underneath her, grinding my erection into her. She presses back, circles her hips against me.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” she says, all breathy in my ear. “But not _your_ lips and mouth and tongue.”

 

“Wait, I’m not using them to kiss you back? That hardly seems fair.”

 

“I think you’ll be using them for something else.” Her hand is on my thigh now, kneading, moving closer. I’m starting to pant a little.

 

“What would I be doing if I’m not kissing you back?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know… gasping for air, screaming my name. You know, because of the kissing _my_ mouth will be doing.”

 

Her hand slides a few inches to the right and comes in contact with the fly of my jeans. More importantly, with what’s behind the fly of my jeans. I groan as the physical sensation connects to the mental image brought on by her breathy, sexy words. Oh, fuck, she’s….

 

“Please God, tell me you’re about to do what I think you’re about to do.”

 

She chuckles, low in the back of her throat, and shifts her weight over me. Her hand presses firmly where before it was just grazing at the same moment that I realize that she’s shifted half way down my body.

 

“Hmmmm…” she hums, pressing her mouth to my stomach. I can feel the vibration through my t-shirt. “Do you think I’m about to give you a blow job?”

 

I arch up against her again, feeling stretched taut and right on the edge when she’s barely even touched me. “Yes.” My voice is pinched and strangled. My eyes are squeezed shut. My head is thrown back. I will die if she doesn’t touch me soon.

 

“I guess you’re in luck then.”

 

She drags out undoing my fly, one button at a time, punctuated with tiny kisses and licks along my waist just above the edge of my jeans. She drags out all of it, barely touching me, breathing on me, kissing my skin softly. By the time she’s at it in earnest, her perfect mouth working in conjunction with her hands, I’m doing exactly what she said I’d do. I’m gasping for air and muttering her name like a prayer. I’m sliding my fingers through her hair, trying to resist the urge to grab her tight. I touch her gently, to thank her for what is, without a doubt, the best blow job of my life. And it only gets better when I come, shouting and fisting my hands into the couch cushions, and she keeps me in her mouth. She swallows some of me, some hits my abdomen. I don’t give a fuck. All I can do is lay there, spent, and stroke the side of her face as she rests her head on my thigh.

 

After a few minutes, I find the energy to speak, although my voice is raspy and low. “Bella?”

 

“Hmmm?”

 

“Did you just give me a blow job because you felt sorry for me after that sob story?”

 

She chuckles and kisses my thigh where her head is resting. “That depends. Did it make you feel better?”

 

“Fuck yes.”

 

“Are you still thinking about your parents?”

 

“Fuck no. That would be disgusting, anyway.”

 

She lifts her head and crawls back up my body until she’s lying across me again. I push my hand into her hair and cradle the back of her head.

 

“Mission accomplished then.”

 

I pull her forward and kiss her. Not hard. Gentle, to thank her for what she just did.

 

“You’re a good person. _Very_ considerate.” I’m joking around now, but I still mean what I’m saying. She’s a good person.

 

She’s smiling, looking down into my face, looking a little smug, but cute. I smile back and try not to think too much, even though my brain is trying to. It occurs to me that she initiated this right on the heels of an actual conversation, and I wonder what that means. It feels a bit like she’s deflecting, pushing things safely back to sex when they threatened to go elsewhere. Then I decide that’s probably a very good thing, because I feel a whole lot safer with just sex, too. We’re both enjoying this, so there’s no point in cluttering it up with a lot of shit that doesn’t matter.

 

She laughs against my mouth. “Anytime.”

 

I cock an eyebrow at her. “Oh, really? I’ll keep that in mind for later. But there’s something else I have to take care of first.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

I push her shoulders back until she’s sitting up, her face puzzled. I stand up, then bend over, grabbing her around the waist and hoisting her up until she’s thrown over my shoulder. Bella shrieks the second that she’s airborne, grabbing fistfuls of my shirt to steady herself.

 

“First, I have to return the favor,” I say, carrying her down the hall to my room and dumping her in the middle of the bed. When I throw myself down on top of her, her head is tipped back and she’s laughing so hard that she’s crying. I’m laughing, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	5. Her Smile

“Hey.”

 

“Hey.”

 

Bella is standing just outside my door, her over-stuffed backpack slung over one shoulder. Her smile mirrors mine. When I called to see if she wanted to come over and hang out, she said she’d been in either classes or study sessions since eight this morning—it shows on her face. Not that she doesn’t look good. She always looks good. But she does look worn out.

 

I probably look worn out, too. I picked up extra shifts at the bookstore all week to help Carlisle do inventory. Then my father called at the beginning of the week and I made the mistake of letting him know that I wasn’t taking classes this semester. I finally hung up on him after thirty minutes of listening to him scream at me and tell me I was fucking up my entire life. I’ve deleted all his voicemails since then without listening to them. I hadn’t realized how tense and tired I’ve been feeling all week until I open the door and see Bella again.

 

I reach out and snag her backpack strap, sliding it off her shoulder, trying to be all smooth and considerate, but I second-guess that when the weight of it momentarily throws me off balance.

 

“Damn!” I huff as it hits the floor with a thud.

 

“Oh, sorry. It’s got all my books and—”

 

“Yeah, whatever. Come here.”

 

I reach out and grab her hip, pulling her inside and into a kiss before she can finish her sentence. Since we first broke the ice and spent time together out of my bedroom, she’s come over several more times. Usually it’s after her shift at the bar and then she’s here for only one thing. There are barely any words exchanged and she’s pulling my clothes off me before the door is even shut behind her. But a couple of other times she’s come over to hang out like she did the first time. We watch TV together, order food, talk. This week, though, between my schedule and hers, she hasn’t even been over for a late-night hook up. It’s been days since I’ve seen her.

 

I’ve missed it way more than I should, but I don’t want to think about that right now. I just want to kiss her and reacquaint myself with her body. She reaches up and grips my shoulders as I deepen the kiss. I turn us where we stand and press her into the wall, leaning my forearms on either side of her head, caging her in. She wraps her arms around my shoulders, pulling herself up into me, and suddenly we’re nowhere near close enough. In minutes, I’ve picked her up and her legs are wrapped around my waist. We were supposed to order some take-out and watch a movie again, but it looks like we’re headed to the bed before we can get around to any of that.

 

Her head falls back against the wall and I move down to kiss her neck and as much of her chest as I can reach. I trace her collarbone with my tongue and she sighs.

 

“Oh, God, that feels good,” she sighs.

 

Her fingers tighten in my hair as her calves tighten around my hips.

 

“I just… I don’t…” I have no idea what I’m trying to say. My fingers are curling tightly into the backs of her thighs and I feel myself pressing hard against her. I want her shirt off so I can touch her, but I’ll have to put her down for that, and the way she’s grinding against me makes me not want to let her go. Like, _ever_.

 

I’m debating with myself what to do next— if we’re going to do this here, just as we are, against the wall—or if I’m going to carry her back to my bedroom, when the front door on my right flies open and clocks me right in the shoulder.

  
“Fuck!”  I stumble sideways. Bella yelps in surprise and slides roughly down my front until her feet are on the floor. But she’s still hanging on to my shoulders to hold herself upright, so I end up falling forward, pinning her against the wall, and cracking my forehead against the drywall just over her shoulder with a loud “thunk” _._

 

“Ow.”

 

I turn to see Alice standing in the doorway, hand over her open mouth, eyes wide with surprise. Jasper is standing just behind her, scratching the back of his neck and looking embarrassed.

 

“Sorry,” he says.

 

I rub my forehead—which is probably bruising—with my palm as I glare at him. “No problem.”

 

Alice is still blinking, glancing between me and Bella. “We were just going to… should we…?” She motions back over her shoulder like she’s going to leave.

 

“No, no,” I grumble, backing up and making room for her and Jasper to come in. Bella ducks her head and slips behind me to retrieve her backpack off the floor. “We were just going to get some dinner,” I say. _After we fucked_. “But we’ll go out.”

 

Never mind that I’ve never been _out_ with Bella anywhere, other than her bar on the night we met.

 

“Wait! I was going to cook. We went shopping and bought all this food!” Alice waves her hand at Jasper and now I notice that he’s hauling a whole bunch of grocery store bags. He must really have it bad, doing all this domestic stuff with Alice. “There’s more than enough. Why don’t you guys stay?”

 

I glance at Bella and she just shrugs. I look at Jasper and raise an eyebrow, making sure that if we stay, I’m not putting a damper on his plans like they just did with mine.  He smiles and shrugs, too. The two of them are like happy grocery-shopping twins.

 

“Alright,” I say. “We’ll stay. Thanks.”

 

Alice’s face lights up. “Great! This will be _so_ much fun!” she says, sounding every bit like the kindergarten teacher that she is.

 

She pushes past me into the kitchen and Jasper follows her, smiling at her retreating back with that dopey grin he gets whenever he’s around her.

 

I turn to look at Bella. “This cool with you?”

 

She smiles and lifts a shoulder. “Sure. Sounds like fun.”

 

“Edward!” Jasper calls as he heads to the living room. “What channel is that Seahawks game on?”

 

“I’m going to go see if Alice needs help with anything,” Bella says.

 

I reach out and snag her hand, giving it a little squeeze. “Sorry we were interrupted back there. I was having fun.”

 

She looks like she’s about to blush. I love that she gets so freaked out by talking about it. I can tell that she doesn’t make a habit out of getting involved like this. Late night calls for sex and no-strings-attached hook ups aren’t her scene. But I can also tell she likes it. And so do I, so as long as she’s game, so am I.

 

But she recovers herself pretty quickly and leans up on tiptoe to whisper in my ear. Her breath is hot on my neck and the side of her breast is pressing into my bicep. “Guess we’ll have to hold that thought, huh?”

 

“Damn right.” I turn my face to kiss her.

 

“Edward!” Jasper whines from the living room just before our lips make contact. Bella laughs and I roll my eyes. She slides past me and down the hall to the kitchen.

 

The rest of the night is good. Fun, even. Jasper and I pop open beers and watch the game. It feels good to hang out again since he hasn’t been around much lately. Every now and then I catch snatches of conversation and laughter from the kitchen. It sounds like Alice and Bella have really hit it off.

 

“I think Alice likes her,” Jasper says, like he’s been listening to them, too. “She seems pretty cool.”

 

I nod. “She is.”

 

“This is turning into a regular kind of thing with you and her, huh?”

 

I laugh and shake my head at his prodding. “We’ve hung out some.”

 

“It’s just that I haven’t seen you spend so much time with a girl… well, it’s been a while.”

 

“We haven’t really put a label on it.”

 

“And she’s okay with that?”

 

“She’s here, isn’t she? Look, she’s really busy with school and her job and stuff. She just wants to relax and blow off some steam. I like helping her do that.”

 

“Yeah, but she’s not going to be content with that for too long, Edward.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Girls like Bella… I mean, she seems smart, like she has a plan. Eventually she’s going to want a plan with you, too.”

 

“She hasn’t said a thing—”

 

“Don’t be surprised when she does, that’s all I’m saying. Also, if you don’t mind my saying, it wouldn’t be the worst thing you could do to give it a real go with her. You could do a hell of a lot worse.” He snorts in laughter at some joke that he only hears in his head. “She could do a lot better.”

 

“Thanks a lot, asshole. You’re just full of relationship wisdom, aren’t you? You’ve been with Alice for what, three weeks?”

 

“Just because I wasn’t in a whole lot of serious relationships before now doesn’t mean I didn’t want one. Everybody wants to meet someone.”

 

I shake my head. “Not everyone.”

 

“Shut up, man. You just think you don’t want something serious because of all that shit that went down with your parents.”

 

“That’s a perfectly good reason, in my mind.”

 

“Not everybody ends up that way.”

 

“Look, I’d just rather not find out. At least, not right now. I’m not in a place where I can deal with something like that.”

 

Jasper sighs but says nothing.   
  


I stand up. “You want another beer?”

 

“Yeah, thanks.”

 

I’m almost to the kitchen and still distracted by all that stuff Jasper laid on me when Alice’s sharp voice reaches me.

 

“I _love_ thai food! There was the best Thai place near my apartment back in Olympia. I haven’t found any good Thai places here yet.”

 

“Oh, there’s this great place near campus,” Bella replies. “Siam Palace. Remind me to give you the address later.”

 

“Why don’t we go together some time? We could have lunch or something!”

 

“Oh,” Bella says, “Um…”

 

But Alice just bulldozes through her hesitation. “Because you know, I just moved here and I don’t really know anybody. Well, no girls anyway. We should hang out. Especially since my boyfriend is your boyfriend’s roommate.”

 

I stop short and hold my breath, waiting to hear what she says. Bella starts talking immediately.

 

“Edward isn’t my boyfriend,” she says shortly.

 

“Oh. But I thought, um, when we came in…”

 

“We’re… we just hang out sometimes. He doesn’t… we’re just not like that. We’re not a couple or anything.”

 

There’s a long pause. I let my breath out very slowly. I expect to feel the knot of anxiety in my chest release at that point, but oddly, it doesn’t. Still, it’s good. She and I are on the same page, just like I told Jasper.

 

“Still,” Alice says, her voice bright again. “We’re bound to run into each other around the apartment sometimes. We should get to know each other. Unless… oh, unless you think it might be awkward later.”

 

_Later, like after we’re done._

 

“No,” Bella protests. “It won’t be awkward. I’d love to hang out. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of friends here either. Just people I know from my department and we don’t socialize all that much. I’m too busy to get out very often.”

 

“Sure, I get it,” Alice says. “So let’s do lunch. It’ll be fun.”

 

“That sounds great.”

 

I’ve decided that I’ve heard enough. More than enough. I clear my throat a little before I start moving again and by the time I come into the kitchen, they’re both smiling and busy. Alice is making lasagna and Bella is making a salad. It’s never smelled so good in here before.

 

Based on what I overheard, I’m half-afraid that Alice will start trying to plan double dates or something during dinner, but she doesn’t. She talks about anything and everything else. Her job, the kids she teaches, how good Jasper is with the little ones. When she finally runs out of her work stories to share, she starts asking Bella questions. It’s like she took a class in how to make conversation with strangers. I’ve never seen anything like it.

 

“So, Bella,” she says, leaning forward on her elbows. “You said you were getting your PhD, right? What year are you in?”

 

Bella clears her throat and takes a quick sip of her beer. “Only my second. I have a long way to go. A lot more classes, then my dissertation.”

 

“Mmm-hmm,” Alice hums. With all the conversation, she’s barely touched her food. No wonder she’s so tiny. “Do you know what you’re doing your dissertation on yet?”

 

Bella’s eyes grow wide. “Oh, it’s way too soon. I have so many ideas… I’m loving Blake right now, so that’s tempting, but it’s really been done to death, you know? What is there that’s new to say? So I was going to go further afield, maybe dig into some of the lesser-known Romantics. There are some minor writers in Italy that are ripe for serious study. Maybe I’ll do a comparison to writers in England or Germany, and work in a lot of cultural study as well. Maybe pull in the whole Catholic/ Protestant thing, make it really broad and encompassing. But that’s awfully ambitious, so I don’t know… I’ll do some intensive research during my study abroad next year and hopefully that will narrow my interests a little.”

 

I’m just staring at Bella from across the table. That might be the most I’ve ever heard her say at one time. About anything important, anyway. I can’t even begin to address all the new information she just let loose, and I wind up only focused on one random detail.

 

“You’re going abroad?”

 

She looks up at me, eyes wide with surprise. “Yeah, spending a year studying overseas is part of my program requirements.”

 

“Where are you going?” Again, I have no idea why I want to know, but I do. It’s really none of my business.

 

“Um, not sure yet. I’ve been researching programs this whole semester and I have a few I’m really excited about. There are a lot of applicants, though, so it’s hard to say. I’m focusing on Italy because it’s my strongest language.”

 

“Your _strongest_? How many do you know?”

 

She cracks a smile and rolls her eyes. “Not _that_ many. Italian, some French, a little German and enough Latin to get by.”

 

I blink.

 

“How do you ‘get by’ with Latin? Nobody speaks that anymore, right?”

 

“No, to get by in my research. A lot of scholars used to make notes in Latin. It comes in handy when you’re dealing with very old archives.”

 

Jesus, Jasper’s so right. She’s amazing. Smart and driven and so sure of herself. I guess I’m lucky she was horny and looking to get laid, or else I’d probably never have a chance with a girl like her.

 

That thought draws me up short; the idea that I’m thinking of her like that. Someone I’d want a _shot_ with. What does that even mean?

 

I scowl and look at my plate. Alice jumps back in and starts asking Bella about juicy gossip from her department. It seems there really isn’t any. Her classmates sound like the dullest people on the planet. No wonder I managed to worm my way past her defenses that night at the bar. She must have been desperate to hang with someone besides the sea of humorless academics that seem to surround her every day.

 

After dinner, Alice declares that Jasper and I are on clean-up duty since she and Bella cooked. The two of them take off to the living room to pick a movie while Jasper and I clear the table. Clean-up for us essentially involves stacking the dishes in the sink to deal with tomorrow, so it doesn’t take very long.

 

When I join them out in the living room with fresh beers, Alice and Jasper are already curled up together in one corner of the couch and Bella is tucked into the far end. She slides over to give me the armrest, but because there are four of us, she’s still pressed into my side when she settles back in. I don’t mind. It feels good. I put my arm around her shoulders and pull her in a little closer. If she’s surprised, it doesn’t show.

 

The movie Alice picked—because it’s clear almost immediately that Bella couldn’t have had a hand in this choice—is really terrible. Some lame romantic comedy about two idiots who fall in love but somehow have no clue and do a lot of stupid shit before they figure it out. I sip my beer and zone out, tracing little patterns on Bella’s shoulder to keep myself from falling asleep.

 

Within a few minutes, I feel her tracing her fingers along the top of my thigh where her hand has been resting. I quickly figure out that she’s trying to copy whatever shape I make. Then it becomes a game. I draw increasingly complex pictures on her arm and when I run out of pictures, I write words. I write “kiss” and “touch” and “sex” and she keeps up, but she loses her place half way through “intercourse”, laughing and slapping my thigh in mild frustration. I start laughing, too. Alice and Jasper are looking at us curiously from their end of the couch.

 

“Sorry,” Bella says.

 

“No you’re not,” I whisper in her ear, which makes her snicker again. She covers her mouth with her hand and hunches down into my chest to cover it up. I reach up and snag her hand with mine, tangling our fingers together and resting them on my chest. She settles back down and we endure a few more minutes of movie purgatory.

 

My phone buzzes from inside my pocket and I let go of her hand to fish it out. I glance at the lit-up display.

 

_“Dad”_

 

I hit “ignore” and sigh heavily.

 

Bella reaches out and closes her hand over the phone. I look down at her. Her dark eyes are fixed on my face, questioning and concerned.   
  


“Is everything okay?” she whispers.

 

I shrug and make a face. “Shitty week. We’re not speaking right now. Well, _I’m_ not speaking and _he’s_ just yelling.”

 

“You want to talk about it?”

 

And suddenly I do. She’ll listen like she did a couple of weeks ago and make me feel better about it. But Alice is giving us the side-eye for talking through the movie she’s obviously enjoying, so I shake my head.

 

“Maybe later. Thanks, though.”

 

She smiles. “Any time.”

 

We don’t talk about it later, though, because by the time we’re in my room, all I can think of is that I haven’t had my hands on her in a week. She’s right there with me, pulling my shirt off, fingers on the fly of my jeans. I shouldn’t be this desperate. I’ve gone much longer without sex.

 

But it’s different with her. We’re so good together like this and a week seems like a year. I worry a little that I want her too much, but when her fingers slip inside my jeans, I quit over-thinking it and just feel. And she feels amazing.

 

I pull her hand free so I can kick off my jeans and help her off with hers. Her sweater and her bra are already long gone. Then I push her back on the bed and press her down into it with my body. She likes it when I do that, when I lay my weight on her. She sighs and lifts her knees, wrapping her calves around my hips to keep me there. Not like I’m going anywhere.

 

I kiss her like I did in the hall, deep and a little desperate, but this time, my hands are free to touch her, too and no one is going to stop us. I touch every part of her that I’ve missed, her hips and her ass, the soft dip of her waist, the weight of her breasts. She rakes her nails across my shoulders and kisses my neck in that way that gives me chills.

 

Then I’m sunk into her, rocking deeper with each push, slow and intense. I take my time, not wanting it to be over too soon tonight. Her breathing gets shallow and she twists her face into the pillow as her hands fist into the sheets on either side of her head, so I know she’s getting close. I am, too. Every muscle in my body is straining. I’m winding up tighter and tighter. I ache with it. I want release, I want euphoria.

 

Then I want something else too. I want to see her face, her eyes. I want her here, not just her body, but Bella. I slide my hand up her chest until I’m holding her face, my thumb on her chin and my fingertips braced along her jaw. I turn her head until she’s facing me and her eyes are open. They’re deep and dark in the dim light of the room. Her mouth is open as she gasps for every breath. We’re both slicked with sweat. As I look down at her and she looks back up at me, I see goosebumps break out across her chest in spite of the heat between us. Her hands release the sheets and then her fingers are on my neck, skating up over my jaw. She’s holding my face, her thumb brushing my bottom lip.

 

I feel my body tighten further. I’m right there.

 

“Bella…”

 

Her hands slide back into my hair and pull hard, just as she arches up underneath me and cries out. Her eyes close and now I can’t keep mine open, either. My head falls forward as my orgasm rockets through me. I bury my face in the crook of her neck and breathe deeply as I come back to earth. I love the way she smells when we’re like this, the salty tang of her sweat and the subtle sweet of her shampoo.

 

She’s relaxed underneath me, her fingers still stroking through my hair as her breathing evens back out. I’m still heaving in each breath, but I manage to press a kiss into the side of her neck and she lets out a little moan of happiness. I need to get off of her but at the moment, there is no better place on earth than this one.

 

After I finally do get myself to move and clean up, I flop onto my back next to her, our arms pressed together. That was different. Whatever this is between us, whatever we are to each other—what just happened was outside of that. It was more than sex and pleasure. I felt close to her and connected to her and all the things you _aren’t_ with a stranger or even a friend with benefits. And while that should freak me out—and it might tomorrow—right now I don’t give a fuck. It feels good. All of it. The sex and the talking and her sweet, warm little body sharing my bed at night and all I really want is more of it. I don’t care what we call it, I just don’t want her to go.

 

I slide my arm under her neck so I can grab her shoulder and turn her. She makes a little startled sound, but rolls into me without protest. The tension in her neck and shoulders relaxes away as her head settles onto my chest. Her hand comes to rest just under my collarbone and I reach up to cover it with my own. I kiss the top of her head, which is just under my cheek and then I’m gone for the night.

 

*0*0*

 

“You have to hit ‘enter’ after you’ve filled in all the fields or else it doesn’t record the sale. It just resets.”

 

Carlisle sighs in that long-suffering way of his from next to me. “I don’t understand what was so wrong with the old receipt book we used.”

 

I chuckle at him and his technophobia. “Because this system interfaces with the Quickbooks program Charlotte set up.”

 

“I don’t know how to use that either.”

 

“You’ll figure it out.”

 

He makes a huff of frustration as he hunts and pecks on the keyboard of our new computerized register. “Right now I can’t even manage to record a sale in my own store.”

 

“You’ll figure this out, too.”

 

“Thank God I have you, Edward. I’ll tell you again, I’m happy to make you manager as soon as you give me the word.”

 

I look down and swallow hard. “I know that. Thanks, Carlisle.”

 

He gives me a warm, genuine smile over his shoulder and then goes back to scowling at the computer screen.

 

“Have you managed to delete your hard drive yet?” Esme asks as she comes to lean on the counter and peer over Carlisle’s shoulder.

 

He cocks an eyebrow at her. “That’s enough from you, Madame. Watch your step or I’ll draft you to come and do all of this nonsense.”

 

Esme laughs and straightens up, holding her hands out in front of her. “Oh, no you don’t. I come in on weekends to make pretty displays for you and I do that out of the kindness of my heart. Nowhere in our marriage vows did I read ‘must help Luddite spouse with all computer challenges’.”

 

“You just wait until the next spider finds its way into our bathroom. We’ll see who needs whom then.”

 

She laughs loudly and reaches up to tug at her auburn hair, thrown up in an improvised knot on her head and speared with a pen.

  
I look on, smiling at their exchange. For all the marital dysfunction I’ve had to live through in my own family, Carlisle and Esme are the only people who give me any hope that there’s another way for things to be. There are no false fronts and no carefully maintained facades with them. They’re genuinely happy together, and genuinely in love. If I could be sure it would end like that, I’d be a lot more enthusiastic about relationships than I am.

 

While Carlisle learns the new register system, I’ve been straightening up the office supplies stored behind the register and trying to subtly direct his efforts when he gets hopelessly stuck. It’s frustrating to stand by as he flails with technology, but watching him and Esme tease each other is amusing enough to make up for it.

 

When I hear the little brass bell over the front door ring, I glance up to see if I need to offer anyone help. I’m startled to see Bella standing there, eyes scanning the room. She sees me and her face lights up with her smile. I can feel mine spread across my face in answer.

 

Carlisle glances up and notices her smiling at me, and me smiling at her.

 

“Oh,” he says. “That young woman has been in to special order from us a few times.”

 

Bella is starting to weave her way around the display tables dotting the center of the room to get to me. I see Esme glance up from the new display she’s assembling, eyeing Bella with interest as she passes. The two of them are so transparent.

 

“Bella,” I murmur to Carlisle. “Her name is Bella.”

 

“Ah, yes. Isabella. Now I remember. Are you and she…? Is she a friend of yours?”

 

I smile at him and his good-natured prodding. “Yes, she’s a friend. A good friend. We’re um… kind of seeing each other.”

 

It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, the first time I’ve put any sort of label on us whatsoever. It’s not as difficult as I imagined. It’s alright. What I like even more is that the beautiful girl making her way across the room is here to see _me_.

 

Bella reaches the counter. It’s October and it’s crisp and cool outside. It’s made her eyes bright and her cheeks slightly pink. She’s wearing a black wool peacoat with a bright blue scarf wrapped up around her neck. I like the way it looks on her.

 

“What are you doing here?” I ask her, still smiling.

 

She produces a slip of paper from her jacket pocket. “Special order!”

 

“Something you couldn’t get from Amazon, huh?”

 

“Well, I like the customer service here better,” she grins back at me, enjoying our little inside joke.

 

I can’t help myself. “I bet you do,” I say, low and suggestive, reaching out for her slip of paper, wrapping my hand around it as well as her fingers. I don’t let go.

 

She laughs and Carlisle clears his throat at my side, not being at all subtle.   
  


“Right. Bella, I think you said you’ve met Carlisle? Carlisle, this is Bella Swan.”

 

“It’s nice to see you in again, Ms. Swan,” Carlisle says, with an old-world charm that doesn’t feel false on him.

 

“Just Bella,” she says.

 

“Well,” Carlisle says, raising his eyebrows at me. “I’m just going to go help Esme with the display. You can help Bella with her order, can’t you, Edward?”

 

“Yeah, I got this.”

 

He steps out from behind the register and hurries away to give Esme help she doesn’t need or want.

 

“Hey,” I say, leaning forward on the counter.

 

“Hey,” she says, leaning in a little, too. “Is this… is it okay that I came in like this? I probably should have called you first, right?”

 

“Bella, it’s fine. I’m glad you did.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah. So do you really need a book or is that just your cover story?”

 

Her eyes go wide and she stammers for a second. “No, I really do. I wouldn’t… I mean, I’m not—”

 

“Hey, I was just teasing.” I squeeze her hand that I’m still holding. “Give me the title and I’ll get it ordered for you. It’s not a problem.”

 

Bella lets go of the slip and watches me for a second as I navigate the new computer system, which I’ve picked up much faster than Carlisle.

 

“What are you doing today?” I ask her as I type.

 

“Well, I met with my study group this morning, and I’m heading to the library this afternoon to do some reading.”

 

“Are you in a hurry?”

 

“Not particularly. Why?”

 

“Come grab a coffee with me?”

 

She smiles slowly. “Sure. Can you leave now?”

 

“Sure. I have a flexible work environment.”

 

I hit enter to finish her order and then shout across the store. “Hey, Carlisle! I’m going on break. You want some tea?”

 

He waves absently and nods. “And a mocha for Esme!”

 

“You got it!” I call as I slip out from behind the counter. “See? As long as I bribe him with a steady supply of tea, he doesn’t care what I do. Let’s go.”

 

“Where’s your jacket?”

 

“In back, but it’s just two stores down. I won’t freeze.”

 

I reach out for her hand and after a moment’s hesitation, her fingers curl around mine. We weave back through the store and out into the brisk fall sunshine. It’s great weather and I’m sorry I’m spending it all in the store. I have the impulse to play hooky with Bella, maybe go for a drive somewhere outside of the city. It’s a nice idea and I’m thinking I’ll have to ask her soon if she wants to do something like that.

 

Right now, I’m just enjoying the novel experience of walking down the sidewalk holding her hand. I see some guy walking towards us, another student, with a backpack slung over one shoulder. He’s talking on his phone, but checking Bella out as he walks, trying to be subtle about it. He’s not. When I glance over at her, she’s oblivious, busy trying to stuff something into her messenger bag or pull it out, I can’t tell which. She’s looking down and her hair is falling forward in front of her shoulders. The sunlight breaking through the leaves overhead make moving patterns on it and make it glow red in places. I’d stare, too if I were that guy.

 

“So how was your study group this morning?” I finally ask her. “Do you guys have a test coming up or something?”

 

She laughs a little. “No, it’s not really that kind of study group. We’re not even all necessarily working on the same thing. It’s sort of a ‘study collective’. One of my friends came up with the idea halfway through our first year and it’s been really helpful. We meet at scheduled times during the week to work together. Having to meet up with other people keeps us disciplined. And even if I’m researching something on my own, if I get stuck, there are people there to bounce ideas off of. It can help you think outside the box sometimes.”

 

“So they’re all your friends, then?”

 

Bella shrugs. “I guess. I like some of them better than others, but they’re all smart and hard-working. Even the jerks can have good insights sometimes, you know? And the support is nice. We’ve become like a little family. It gets you through the rough spots, having people there to back you up.”

 

I smile down at her. “Sounds nice.”

 

“It is.”

 

We’re in the coffee shop by now. When the guy ahead of us finishes the order, we move to the counter. Tanya is working today and when she sees me, she momentarily lights up with a smile before her eyes flick to Bella at my side and the smile fades.

 

Tanya is a senior at UW and she’s worked at the coffee shop for two years now. Considering that it’s two doors down from the bookstore, I’m in here daily and I see a lot of her. She’s always been really friendly with me, and at times, really flirtatious, too. She’s pretty—tall with long dark blonde curly hair and a tiny rhinestone stud in her nose. I’ve been friendly back, and even a little flirtatious myself, but I’ve never moved it beyond that, in spite of her signals that I could, mostly because I knew I’d see her all the time and I didn’t want it to be weird. Now, seeing the daggers she’s shooting Bella, I’m glad I never did. This is bad enough as it is.

 

“Hey, Edward,” she says, eyes on me to reinforce how well she knows me. “How’s it going?”

 

“Um, fine. Can I get a large house blend, a large hot tea, and a medium skim mocha?” I purposely don’t ask how she is today, shutting down any casual chat immediately. Her eyes stay steadily on me, but I turn to Bella, making it clear that we’re here together. “What do you want?”

 

Bella’s eyes move from me to Tanya, then back again. “Um, a cappuccino. Large.”

 

Tanya finally looks at Bella, the barest acknowledgement of her order, then back to me. “Twelve-fifty,” she snaps.

 

I shove the money at her and tug on Bella’s arm to get her to the end of the counter and away from Tanya’s frosty stare.

 

Bella looks down and fiddles with the strap on her bag. I’m annoyed that Tanya’s made her feel uncomfortable for absolutely no reason. I put my hand on the small of her back while we wait. Bella finally looks up at me with a tight little smile. I rub a circle on her back and I feel her relax a little.

  
I’m leaning down to whisper something dirty in her ear and see if I can get her to blush when I hear someone say her name behind us. She spins around in surprise.

 

“Angela!” she says to the tall, dark-haired girl with glasses standing behind us. “You weren’t at study group this morning.”

 

The girl rolls her eyes. “I know. Sorry, sorry. My car wouldn’t start _again_ and Ben wasn’t home to give me a jump.”

 

“You need to get that battery replaced before you get stranded someplace, Ang.”

 

“I know. As soon as my stipend comes through from the registrar’s office.” The girl glances at me, her eyes flicking up and down me quickly in curiosity. Bella shifts her weight and clears her throat.   
  


“Oh, right. Ang, this is my… friend, Edward. Edward, this is Angela. She’s in the department with me.”

 

I reach out and shake Angela’s hand. She smiles warmly, but I don’t miss the tiny questioning glance she throws at Bella. Bella does, though, because she’s too busy looking at her feet.

 

“Nice to meet you, Edward. Are you a student at UW, too?”

 

“Oh, ah, no. I work at the bookstore down the block.”

 

“Sunset Books?” Bella interjects. “You know that one? They do special orders?”

 

“Oh, right. Great store,” Angela nods. “Hey, I have to run. Bella, are you in the library this afternoon?”

 

“Yeah, I have a ton of reading to get through.”

 

“Great, I’ll text you when I get there and come find you. Nice to meet you, Edward.”

 

“You too.”

 

“See you, Ang.”

 

Angela turns to go, looking at Bella one more time over her shoulder, but Bella has already turned back to the counter. I watch her for a minute, noticing how she’s chewing on her bottom lip, and thinking about that pause before she introduced me as “a friend”. I’ll have to think a little more on that one later, since I’m not sure if it means anything and if I care or not.

 

“So,” I finally say. My voice startles her and she jumps. “Can you come over tonight?”

 

“Um, I’m not sure. I have a lot of reading.”

 

“Yeah, that’s what you said.”

 

“Well, I do.”

 

“Alright. So do you want to come over after?”

 

“Like, late?”

 

She means really late. Late enough that we won’t do much talking, just stripping and fucking. I shouldn’t complain. I’m _not_ complaining. Not really. And it’s not like I’ll tell her not to come over for that. I just wish she could come sooner, and I wish she’d come for more.

 

 _I wish I had more_. I can’t believe I’m even thinking that, but there it is. I am.

 

“Sure,” I finally say.

 

She nods. “I’ll call you.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Tanya appears with our drinks, my larger order settled into a tray.

 

“Thanks,” I tell her.

 

“Anytime,” she says, her face hard. I don’t make eye contact.

 

Grabbing a cup of coffee with Bella seemed like such a great idea, but now we’re both just tense and unhappy. And things that seemed simple this morning are now muddy and unclear.

 

“I have to get back to work,” I say.

 

“Sure. Thanks for the coffee.”

 

“No problem. It was good seeing you.” I stand there and debate for just a second. Then I lean in and kiss her cheek. She holds very still and her eyelids flutter a little. When I straighten up, I smile as casually as I can. “See you tonight?”

 

She nods, but no smile. “Tonight.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Her Words

 

 

I get home that night to find Jasper and Alice getting ready to go out. Alice is in a tiny black dress and heels so high that she’s almost normal sized. She has Jasper cornered in the living room and she’s giving him a hard time about the shirt he’s wearing.

 

“Honestly, Al, I don’t even usually change shirts when I go out. This one is fine.”

 

Alice rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but usually you’re just sitting at a bar with Edward. Tonight you’re going to be dancing with me. And look at me, Jasper. Your shirt needs to step up to the plate. What about that blue one?”

 

He huffs, but doesn’t respond. He just heads to his room, already unbuttoning the offending white shirt.

 

“Hey!” Alice says when she sees me setting down my bag. “Is Bella here?”

 

I scowl. “No. Why would she be?”

 

Alice shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s Saturday.”

 

“She’s studying at the library tonight.”

 

“Oh.” She looks really disappointed. “Jasper and I are going out for drinks. Come with us!”

 

“I don’t think so, Alice.”

 

“Why not?” she whines, sounding just like one of her kids. “What are you going to do instead? Sit around here and watch TV? Thrilling.”

 

She has a point. I have no plans and even if Bella comes over, it won’t be until much later. There’s no harm in going out for a drink. The company might do me good. If I sit here home alone, I’ll just get drunk and brood.

 

“Yeah, sure. Fine. Just let me change.”

 

“I knew I’d get you,” she says with an almost-evil little smirk.

 

When I come back out a few minutes later in dark jeans and a black dress shirt, Jasper has shown back up in the blue shirt that Alice approves of.   
  


“Where are we headed?” I ask as I button my cuffs.

 

“Gaslight Lounge,” Alice says, looking for her purse.

 

“That’s where Bella works.”

 

Alice stops and looks up at me. “So? You said she’s studying tonight, right? You can’t go there because she works there?”

 

“Is that weird for you?” Jasper asks.

 

“No, no… it’s fine. You’re right, she’s studying. She won’t even be there. Are you ready?”

 

I follow them in my car because I don’t want to be stuck at the bar if it turns out to be really boring. Inside, it’s crowded and loud. Tons of people are dancing and Alice drags Jasper off immediately. I take pity on him and head to the bar to get the drinks. Even though I know she’s not there, I can’t help but look around for Bella anyway. Of course I don’t see her. There’s one bartender there, a dark-haired guy I haven’t seen before, looking totally overwhelmed. It takes him forever to get to me. I order drinks for all three of us, so Alice and Jasper don’t have to deal with the crowd for a while.

 

I find a small hi-top table just a little ways from the bar, up against the back wall. I can see the dance floor, but I’m not close to it, so there are less people around. I settle in and keep an eye on Jasper and Alice, who’s grinding all over him and not looking at all like a kindergarten teacher at the moment.

 

I sip my beer and watch people, trying to convince myself that I’m enjoying this. After a half hour or so, Alice and Jasper take a break and head for the table. Alice has two girls in tow.

 

“Oh, my god!” she says as she flops into the seat opposite me. “That was so much fun! They play great music here. This is Kate and Irina. We ran into them while we were dancing! They both teach at the Academy with Jasper and me”

 

The shorter one with curly light brown hair raises a hand and says, “Hi. Kate, second grade.”

 

The other one, tall with long straight pale blonde hair, says “Irina, art.”

 

“Hey. I’m Edward, Jasper’s roommate.”

 

Jasper claps me on the shoulder. “I’m gonna get drinks for the girls. Back in a sec.”

 

Alice promptly launches into a conversation with Kate and I’m left with Irina. We glance at each other and smile awkwardly.

 

“So,” she says, pausing for a second. “What do you do?”

 

“Um, I work at a bookstore.”

 

“Oh. Cool. Are you from Seattle, then?”

 

“Yeah. Well, Mercer Island. But I’ve lived here my whole life. You?”

 

Irina shakes her head. “Portland. I moved here last year for the job.”

 

“So you work with Alice at the school. Do you like it?”

 

I spend the next thirty minutes engaged in idle chit-chat with Irina. She’s a nice girl and pretty. She seems smart and not too flighty or irritating. She’s friendly without being obvious; interested without being pushy. She smiles a lot and once or twice, when I say something that makes her laugh, she touches my arm lightly. Not too forward, just a brush of her fingers. It’s enough, though. She’s into me. I can see it in her single-minded focus on our admittedly superficial and uninteresting conversation, and I can see it in her tiny moments of physical self-consciousness. She bites her lip, and tucks her hair behind her ear, and runs her fingers absently along the neckline of her blouse.

 

I fiddle with the label on my beer bottle, keep up the conversation and think. I try to decide what to do here. If I want to do this, I can. I know that. Bella and I are not exclusive. There’s not much of an “us” to even be considering. This morning, she introduced me rather pointedly as a friend.

 

It doesn’t matter. It feels like there _is_ an “us”. I feel like I’m doing something wrong. It confuses me and I don’t know what to do. I lick my lips and watch Irina trail her fingertips from her collarbone down to the “v” of her blouse as she tells me about her major in college. I look back up at her face. She’s smiling at me. Her blue eyes are bright, engaged, inviting me in. This would be so easy.

 

I try to swallow and can’t.

 

“I’m going to get another beer,” I say, sliding off my barstool. “You want something?”

 

“Oh… sure. A beer would be great. Thanks.”

 

I give her a tight nod and head towards the bar. It’s not as crowded as it was earlier and as soon as I push my way to the front, I see why. Bella is there now, busily taking orders and pouring drinks. I don’t say anything. I don’t even try too hard to get her attention. Was she lying to me about studying tonight? Why, if it was just because she was working? What’s the difference? It doesn’t matter that I don’t speak; in moments, she sees me anyway, like she could sense my presence. Her face is expressionless, but her eyes drop away immediately and she chews her lip.

 

A few minutes later, she takes a deep breath and moves in front of me.

 

I don’t waste time with pleasantries. “I thought you said you were studying tonight.”

 

“I was, but Mike got food poisoning and my boss called me in a panic.” She shrugs dismissively. That explanation sounds reasonable enough, but she’s acting really distant and I don’t understand it. Not at all like she was earlier today when she came to see me at the store.

 

“I was just surprised to see you here,” I say, with a little smile, hoping to recapture the mood from this morning. I want to see her smiling and playful, her eyes bright like they were then. Right now, she won’t even make eye contact with me.

 

“I’m sure you were.” Her delivery is completely neutral, her voice flat. Her eyes are focused in the vicinity of my first shirt button. Then, for just a second I see her look past me, over my shoulder, and I groan in frustration. She’s been watching me chat up some pretty blonde chick for the past half hour. I think back on what’s happened. Irina smiling at me, flirting, reaching out to touch me… No wonder she’s so aloof. She doesn’t seem mad, though, just distant.

 

“Hey.” I crouch down a little to catch her eyes. She looks up at me, still with no expression. “I’m just hanging out with some friends of Alice and Jasper’s from work.”

 

“Okay,” she says, still blank. It’s frustrating because I have this need to fix this and I don’t know why and I don’t know how to. She’s making drinks again, eyes on her hands.

 

“Can you still come over tonight?”

 

She doesn’t look up, but she does give a humorless little chuckle. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

 

My hand shoots out over the bar and I grab her arm to still her. She looks up at me in surprise. “Yeah, I’m sure. Come over.”

 

Bella stares back at me and I can’t read her expression at all. I don’t know what she’s thinking. “I don’t know,” she finally says at length. “It’s going to be a late night. I have to close.”

 

“Call me whenever. You know I always want you to come over.”

 

She sighs, sounding endlessly weary. “Yeah, I know you do. Look, I’ll see. I have to get back to work. Did you want something? A drink?”

 

I let go of her arm and order a couple of beers. She sets the bottles down in front of me with an efficient snap, her eyes once more cutting quickly over my shoulder. I’m silently cursing Alice for dragging Irina back to our table because now it looks like I’m buying her a drink. Once she brings back my change, I spend just another second trying to make eye contact, but she doesn’t look up. The crowd is pressing in at my back and I’m not going to get anything more out of her right now, that’s clear. With a frustrated sigh, I push my way back through the crowd.

 

I stay just long enough to finish my beer, then I make my excuses and cut out. Irina looks surprised and disappointed. I don’t care.

 

No, that’s not exactly right. What tonight proved to me is that I _do_ care, just not about Irina or anybody else. I care about Bella.

 

Bella doesn’t come over or call that night.

 

*0*0*

 

 

Carlisle has made a mess of the new computer system in less than a week. Thankfully he’s buried in the back room so he’s not here to get in my way as I work through all the errors and wrongly entered information to get things sorted out. The store is pretty empty so I’m free to spend all afternoon on this. That’s good, because it will probably take me that long to fix it.

 

I’m tempted to bitch about it, but on the other hand, being this busy is better than staring at the wall. If I do that, I think too much, and that’s no good.   
  
This situation with Bella is eating at me. I guess we’re okay. It was weird that she didn’t even call that night after I saw her at the bar, but when I called her the next day, she sounded fine, totally normal. It’s been four days since then and she’s been over once. It was after her shift, so there wasn’t much talking, but the rest was really good. It always is, though, so that doesn’t mean much.

 

It feels like we’re doing something new here. Well, it feels like something new to _me_.  I’m not sure if it feels that way for her, too. I’m not good at this kind of thing. I’m not entirely clear about what I want or what I’m supposed to do about it. So I figure I’m better off not thinking and just going on instinct. I’ll call her when I want to, I’ll take her out if she’ll go with me and we’ll just see.

 

Like I summoned her just by thinking of her, the front bell tinkles and I look up to see Bella standing just inside. She looks terrible. Her eyebrows are drawn together and her mouth is a hard, tight line.

 

I smile as soon as I see her, but it takes a minute before she even looks around the store for me. When she does, she looks like she’s in a daze. I move out from behind the counter and go to her, since she still hasn’t moved from the front door. When I get to her, I see one of her hands is wrapped around the strap of her messenger bag so tightly that her knuckles are white and the other is clutching a wrinkled piece of paper. She’s pale— even paler than she usually is.

 

As soon as I’m in front of her, I reach out and grab her arms because she’s starting to freak me out.

 

“Bella, what’s wrong?”

 

She shakes her head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. I’m just… it was close, and I didn’t know what to do…” Her voice is unsteady and raw. I’ve never seen her so shaken up.

 

“Hey, it’s fine that you’re here. What’s going on?”

 

“That bastard stole my fucking paper. He _stole_ it!” She shakes the crumpled paper at me.

 

“Who stole it? Stole what?” I grab her fist and carefully work the paper out of her hand.

 

“Eric! He’s in my study group. And he _stole_ my research paper!”

 

I unfold what she was holding and take a look. It’s a print-out of an outline. Each bullet point has a bunch of notes underneath it, none of which make a lot of sense to me.  
  


“Wait. You’re saying this Eric guy copied this from you?”

 

“No, not verbatim. But that’s my work! He wasn’t even doing that subject a week ago!”

 

“Bella…” I reach out to put my hand on her shoulder and her tense, furious face just collapses. Her eyes well with tears and her mouth screws up.

 

“Fuck,” she whispers, swiping angrily at her eyes. “I have to go home.”

 

She turns on her heel, but I reach out and grab her shoulders from behind. “Hold up. Just wait a second. I’ll take you.”

 

She turns just enough to look at me. “I can’t ask you to leave work, Edward.”

 

“You’re not asking. I’m offering. Just… wait here, okay? I’ll be right back.”

 

She pauses for a second, but nods, biting her lip. I bolt to the back of the store and poke my head in the back room.

 

“Carlisle, I have an emergency. Well, it’s Bella. She’s in trouble. I hate to ask…”

 

He looks up, startled, but concerned as soon as he hears Bella’s name. “Of course, Edward. If she needs you, you have to go. I hope she’s alright.”

 

“She’s okay. I think she just needs some help. Thanks. I really appreciate this,” I say as I shrug into my jacket and grab my bag from the corner.

 

“Any time, Edward. Take care and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

I hurry back to where Bella is still standing by the door. She’s reading her paper again and her face is twisted with anxiety. When I get close to her, I slip my arm around her waist.

 

“Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

 

*0*0*

 

This is the first time I’ve ever been to her place. Her roommate, who she has mentioned once or twice, isn’t home. I think Bella told me the girl majors in chemical engineering and spends long hours in the lab. She’s rarely around. It’s a basic, small college apartment, spare with just a few personal touches. Standard-issue Ikea furniture, some framed art posters on the walls, a couple of potted plants, some bright throw pillows on the couch.

 

Bella walks straight through the living room and back to her bedroom. The walls are lined with bookshelves, all of them filled with books. There are also stacks of books on the desk under her window and another stack on the floor by her bed. The bed is neatly made—which, knowing Bella, doesn’t surprise me.

 

She deposits her bag on the desk and drops heavily onto the foot of her bed, still staring at the paper in her hands. I sit down next to her.

 

“Okay, start at the beginning. Where did you get this and what is it?”

 

She closes her eyes and exhales through her nose. She didn’t really talk during the car ride over. She was mostly focused on not crying—she still is.

 

“Remember I told you about my study group?”

 

“Yeah, you guys meet up to work together.”

 

“Eric is in the study group with me. He and I were both working in the departmental office between classes today. They let us hook our laptops up to the printer there when we need to.”

 

I nod to encourage her.

 

“So he printed a whole bunch of stuff out. I was getting really annoyed because I needed to print, too and he was taking forever. Anyway, he finally got done and grabbed all his stuff out of the printer and took off to his class. I printed out my stuff and when I got to class and started sorting my piles, I found this in there. He must have missed it in the printer.”

 

“And you’re sure it’s his? This couldn’t be from your computer?”

 

The look of incredulity she gives me is epic. “He writes everything in _Comic Sans_. I would _never_ use Comic Sans. I mean, really, what kind of serious scholar writes _anything_ in Comic Sans?”

 

“An asshole one, if what you’re saying is true.”

 

“It _is_ true! These are my ideas. My outline!”

 

“But you said it’s not verbatim.”

 

“No, it’s not a copy-and-paste, at least not all of it. Some lines are copied though, here and there. But even leaving that out, it’s just way too close to what I’ve been working on. Like I said, he wasn’t even reading this stuff a week ago. Suddenly he’s far enough along to produce an outline with this depth of detail? No way.”

 

She’s more freaked out than I’ve ever seen her. Usually she’s so sharp and focused, but now she’s just a mess of tears, anger and anxiety. I’m not going to get anywhere if I can’t calm her down. I reach out and snag both of her hands in mine. I rub my thumb over the inside of her wrist and that settles her a little. She exhales again, long and shaky.

 

“Okay. I get that,” I say, keeping my voice low and trying to soothe her. “So let’s figure this out. How would he have gotten his hands on your outline?”

 

She closes her eyes and inhales deeply, thinking. “Well, we’re in study group. I’ve always got my laptop on and docs open when we’re working. Sometimes I’ll head into the stacks to find a book or something. It’s not like I shut it all down and password protect it. I mean, Jesus! I thought I could _trust_ everybody.”

 

She lets out an angry, helpless growl of frustration and her eyes well again.

 

I reach up a hand and cup her face.

 

“Hey. It’s okay. We’ll fix this. You’ll go to your department head or your advisor and you’ll report him.”

 

“It will be his word against mine.”

 

“Everything you just told me says you’ve got him by the balls on this. Look, how long ago did you start working on your outline?”

 

She looks up at me and blinks. “Um, I don’t know. A month ago? Six weeks, maybe?”

 

“There will be a creation date on your outline. There’s one on his, too, and I’m guessing his was not created over a month ago. And you know what? Does this asshole know that you have this yet?”

 

“Uh… no. I left class and went straight to your store. I didn’t see him again.”

 

“Okay, so you’re going to email me a copy of yours right now, just to cover your ass. If you sent me a copy with the date the document was first created on it before you speak with anyone in the department about it, that’s hard to argue with.” I have no idea if any of that will work, but I figure it’s best to give her something concrete to focus on.

 

It seems to help. She nods slowly and exhales, calmer already. “Right. Okay.”

 

She boots up her laptop and opens her email.

 

“Um, I don’t know your email address,” she murmurs.

 

It’s momentarily awkward as I lean across her bed and type it in. As I hit send, I smile at her over my shoulder, trying to lighten the mood a little. “You do now. Hey, maybe I’ll even friend you on Facebook now, as long as you promise not to send me any of that Farmville shit.”

 

She chuckles softly. It’s a start.

 

“Now you need to figure out who to talk to. Do you want to go right to the dean?”

 

She groans and presses her eyes closed. “I don’t know.”

 

I squeeze her hand to get her to focus. “Is there somebody in your department you can talk to about this? Somebody you really trust?”

 

Bella sighs and rubs her hand across her forehead. “Angela. I should call Angela.”

 

I reach up and brush her cheek with my thumb. It seems like she’ll be able to handle this issue, but she looks like what she needs most right now is comfort. She leans against my hand for just a second and just breathes, eyes closed.

 

“Call Angela,” I tell her. “Maybe she can help you make a plan.”

 

“Okay. Can…”

 

“What?” When she hesitates, I prompt her. “Just ask me, Bella.”  
  


“Can you stay while I call her?”

 

I smile. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll order us a pizza, okay? You need to eat something.”

 

She nods. I leave to go dig out her takeout menus while she calls Angela. When I finish, I head back into her bedroom and stretch out on her bed while she talks on the phone. She’s pacing back and forth down the length of her room, one hand fisting in her hair, as she vents loudly to Angela. Whenever she pauses for breath, I hear Angela’s angry ranting through the phone.

 

It takes them a good fifteen minutes to get through with yelling and calling Eric every derogatory nickname imaginable and insulting the size of his dick, although I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. Once they’ve worked through their mutual rage, it sounds like Angela leads the conversation back around to help Bella make a plan, which was just what I wanted her to do. I can be there to support and encourage her, but Angela knows the department and the people. She’s who Bella should be talking this through with.

 

I flip through the paperback copy of _The Sorrows of Young Werther_ on her nightstand as she talks through all the possible outcomes and the pros and cons of each idea. I can only hear Bella’s half of the conversation, but I pick up on enough.

 

“So you think I should go straight to Dean Anderson? Not Professor Werner?” She pauses to hear Angela’s answer. “Right. No, I know it’s serious… No, I get it. It’s going to end up in a formal inquiry no matter what, so I probably just shouldn’t waste time with the advisor. God knows, I don’t want to drag this out any longer than I have to.”

 

She sighs and her head drops back. I wish she’d sit down so I could rub her shoulders or something, but the pacing seems to help her focus.

 

“So here’s the big question, Ang. Do I call the rest of the study group ahead of time or let them find out with the formal complaint?” She nods along with whatever Angela replies.  “I know. I hate not telling them… Jess would want to know, right? But I don’t want to compromise anybody, you know what I mean? So, just the people we’re close to or nobody at all?” I can hear the tinny buzz of Angela’s answer. “Well, Heidi, of course. And Jess, like we said….” Angela asks her something and I see her eyes cut quickly to me before she pivots on her heel and turns away. “No, definitely not Riley. You _know_ why. He’d go postal and it would just get weird.”

 

I feel a frisson of anxiety. There was no missing that moment. Who the hell is Riley? Some guy in her study group, obviously. Under the circumstances, there could be a lot of reasons she can’t or won’t talk to him. Except she looked at me and then she turned away. My gut is telling me there’s something there that I won’t like.

 

 I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling while she finishes her phone call. It shouldn’t surprise me that there might be somebody else in the picture. Bella’s amazing. Beautiful, smart, funny. I remember what Jasper said, when he warned me that Bella would  want a plan eventually. Maybe a plan with a PhD candidate who doesn’t just call her up for sex at two a.m. Jasper’s totally right. She’s going to get tired of this set-up of ours sooner or later. Probably sooner. I hate that feeling; I feel like we’re friends now. Today proved that, at least to me. But are we more? Are we enough?

 

Her conversation seems to be wrapping up, so I sit up and wait.

 

“Yeah, Ang. Okay, we’ll finish it up in the morning. Yes, eight. See you then. Thanks so much, sweets. I don’t know what I’d do without you… Bye.”

 

She drops her phone on the desk with a sigh and turns to look at me. She looks exhausted and defeated. I pat the bed next to me and she collapses down.

 

“Talk to me,” I whisper, putting my arm around her shoulder.

 

“I’m just so… _mad_ that he put me in this position. That he’s dragged me into this nightmare.”

 

“Hey, you’re acting like it’s going to reflect badly on you. It won’t. He’s the cheater and he’s the one who’ll pay. You’re the victim here.”

 

“I know that.  But still, it will be there. This big formal complaint in my files. I work _so_ hard. This isn’t easy for me. It wasn’t easy to get into this program and it’s not easy to pay for. I just want to keep my head down and work hard and do well. I _live_ for this. No slacking and no distractions. And now there’s… _this_. I trusted that asshole and he betrayed me. He wasn’t my favorite person in our group, but still. I thought we were in this together, you know? We’re supposed to be looking out for each other, supporting each other. Instead, he fucked me over. I’m just so _furious_ at him.”

 

“You should be. But you’ll be fine, you know that, right?”

 

Bella sighs. I reach up and brush her hair back over her shoulder so I can see her face. “I know. Thanks for suggesting I call Angela. She was perfect and we’re going to meet in the morning before I go to the dean.”

 

“I’m glad you’ve got someone to help you through this.”

 

She turns her head a little in my direction, but she doesn’t look at me. She swallows hard and twists her hands in her lap. I can tell she wants to say something. I rub her shoulder to encourage her.

 

“Um… thank you for helping me today, Edward. I know that you’re not…” She stops and squeezes her eyes shut before she continues. “You didn’t have to do this. Be here like this for me.”

 

I pull her into my side until I can rest my forehead against hers. I reach up and stroke my thumb over her cheek. “I’m glad you came to see me. I’m glad I could help.” I have to close my eyes and swallow hard before I can speak again, and then it’s just a whisper. “I’ll be here for you any way you need me to be.”

 

It’s the closest thing I can get to a declaration right now, and I have no idea if it’s enough. Bella smiles gently against my hand. When I open my eyes to look at her, inexplicably, she’s crying again. Her face is so sad. Not angry— _sad_.

 

“Hey, what—“

 

She shakes her head hard. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry. Just… thank you.”

 

I lean forward and kiss her. Nothing heavy, just reassuring and comforting. She’s still crying silently, tears tracking steadily down her cheeks. I scoot back on the bed and tug on her shoulders until she follows me, until she’s laying tucked into my side and her head is on my chest. I press a kiss against the top of her head and she lets out a long, shuddering sigh.

 

By the time the pizza shows up, she’s calmed down a bit, but after we eat, she snags my hand and asks me in a whisper if I’ll stay the night with her. I don’t tell her that I had absolutely zero intention of leaving.   
  


That’s the first night I sleep with Bella and we don’t have sex. I hold her through the night, and give this sweet, strong girl just a moment to be weak. 

  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Her Heart

 

Although the thing with Eric freaked Bella out, in the end, it all worked out. The worst part was the first meeting with the Dean, during which she leveled the charges. But the fact that she got to him before Eric knew he’d been found out helped a lot. She emailed the Dean a copy of her outline and mentioned the creation date-stamp. The Dean called Eric in without letting him know why and demanded to look at his outline on the spot.   
  


With warning, the weasel could have copied it into an older doc and gotten around that, but since he didn’t know what was coming, he didn’t have time to cover his tracks. His outline had been created just a week prior, right after a late-night study session that both he and Bella had been at. She remembered getting caught up in the stacks for a big portion of the night and surmised that Eric had copied her outline then.

 

After that, it was in the hands of the Office of Scholarly Integrity. Who knew that UW even had one of those? They weren’t messing around, though. They ran their own investigation, and although they needed Bella’s input, she didn’t have to actively pursue the issue anymore. Eric was put on temporary suspension until the case could be resolved, but he spared them all the further hassle and quit the program shortly after.

 

Bella is still shaken up by the whole thing, but her usual laser focus has returned. She seems to be doubling her efforts at school, like she needs to prove herself—which is ridiculous. The reason that asshole chose to copy her was because she’s so damned smart. She doesn’t need to redeem herself in anyone’s eyes. But Bella’s got issues about that, and nothing I say convinces her otherwise.

 

Besides, I’m just a college drop-out and she’s the PhD student. It’s crazy for me to tell her to take it easy, so I suppose that’s why she doesn’t listen.

 

I’m uncertain about how to proceed with her in many ways. The whole cheating thing was upsetting to her, but it seemed to take us to a new level. She turned to me when she was in trouble, and I didn’t mind being there for her. In fact, I liked it. I was only sorry there wasn’t more that I could do.

 

I’ve come to terms with the idea that I’ve developed feelings for Bella. I didn’t mean to, but it’s happened. What I haven’t figured out is what to do about it. I’m still as much of a mess as I ever was, and Bella… is not. I can’t figure out what she wants from me. I don’t know if I can give it to her even if I do figure it out. Even worse is the idea that maybe she doesn’t want _anything_. Maybe what we are right now is more than enough for her.

 

Mostly, I just want her around, and right now, she seems happy to do that. Maybe this is how it works. We’ll just be what we are and we’ll naturally stumble our way into whatever it is we’re meant to be . It will evolve into something more when we’re both ready for it. In the meantime, I resolve not to worry about it. Bella, as always, doesn’t press for anything.

 

She’s over tonight—before midnight for the first time in a week—and I’m more excited about it than I care to admit. Jasper and Alice are out to dinner, celebrating their two month anniversary. I tried to hold off making an obnoxious comment about that until Bella did it first, and then we laughed about it together.

 

She wants to order Chinese and I can’t find the menu. I’m digging through every drawer in the kitchen to find it for her. I hear her call me from the living room, where she’s curled up on the couch with a book.

 

“Edward? Your phone is ringing out here.”

 

“Can you just answer it? I’ll be right there.”

 

I find the menu, buried under our forks for some reason. I’m just walking into the living room when Bella looks at me apprehensively, my phone against her ear.

 

“J.R.? I think you have the wrong number. There’s no…”

 

I lunge forward and grab the phone away from her.

 

“Dad, it’s me.”

 

“Who was that answering your phone?”

 

I look at Bella and she raises her eyebrows at me, mouthing, “J.R.?” __

I scowl and shake my head, before I turn away.

 

“That was… a friend. I was in the other room.” I flinch at describing Bella exactly the same way she described me to Angela that day in the coffee shop. But I really don’t want to open that door to my father, so I figure it’s best to play it off.

 

“Well, I guess I should thank her, since it’s clear you had no intention of answering my calls yourself.”

 

I move out of the living room down the hall to my room so Bella doesn’t have to hear this. “Can we not do this now? I’m in the middle of something, and…”

 

“What can you possibly be in the middle of since you’ve dropped out of college?”

 

I close my eyes and exhale through my nose, trying to make myself count to five before I say anything. It doesn’t help. I’m livid.

 

“It’s my life, Dad. You’ve already told me you disapprove. Over and over at this point. I really don’t need to hear it again.”

 

“Apparently you do, since nothing I’ve said so far seems to have had any impact on you. How much time do you think you have to waste? You’re not getting any younger and still, there you sit, wasting your days at that little bookstore, running around with your friends and obviously, some girl—”

 

“That’s enough.” I snap, once he works around to Bella. Passing judgment on me is one thing, but he’s not allowed to go near her. “Nothing I do is ever going to pass muster with you, Dad, and I’m really tired of listening to this, so can we just stop already?”

 

“And I’m tired of watching you throw your life away! After all the opportunities we gave you—”

 

“And here we are,” I interrupt him with a humorless laugh. “This is what it’s really all about. This isn’t about me, it’s about you. I’m turning out to be a bad return on your investment.”

 

“You know very well that’s not what I meant.”

 

“Oh, I do? Funny, it seems like you haven’t had one decent word to say to me since I quit the business program. It kind of feels like when I stopped following in your footsteps, I stopped being your son.”

 

There’s a long, completely dead pause on the phone and I immediately feel how harsh my words were. I regret them, but then again, I don’t. I was mean, but I need this to stop. I need to draw a line in the sand once and for all and make sure he doesn’t cross it.

 

“Edward…”

 

“Dad, I have to go. And… I can’t do this anymore. Just… _stop_.”

 

I hang up before he can say anything else. Then I turn off my phone for good measure. I press it against my forehead for a second, just breathing, willing myself to calm down. Finally, I throw my dark phone on the bed and turn back to the door.   
  
Bella is leaning against the door frame.

 

“Hey.”

 

“How much of that did you hear?”

 

“Enough to know it was bad. Are you okay?”

 

My head drops forward until my chin touches my chest. “Christ, I don’t know.”

 

Bella pushes off the wall and crosses to me. Her arms slide around my waist without hesitation and she lays her cheek on my chest. She feels good here. So right. Everything’s better like this. None of what just happened even matters when I have her like this.

 

“I think I just broke up with my father,” I say. I can’t help the bubble of hysterical laughter that I let out. Bella’s arms tighten around me. I can feel her fingers fisting in my shirt.   
  


“Just give it some time. It sounds like you two are really toxic for each other right now. Let it be for a while.”

 

“Believe me, I have no intention of speaking to him again.”

 

“Edward, you’ll have to eventually.”

 

“No, I won’t.”

 

“He’s your dad.”

 

“He’s a stranger.”

 

“Then you have to get to know him again. And he needs to get to know you. The real you. The person you are now, not the one he remembers.”

 

“Bella—”

 

She reaches up and presses her fingertips to my mouth to silence me. “But not right away. You’re going to take a break, starting now.”

 

I smile against her fingers. “I’m not going to argue with that.”

 

She grins up at me. “You just have to tell me why he called you J.R.”

 

I roll my eyes and groan. “His name is Edward, too. I’m Edward Masen, Jr. So when I was growing up, my parents called me J.R. You know, for ‘Junior’. It kind of stuck and everybody called me that until I went away to college.”

 

“I have to say, that’s pretty adorable.”

 

“You’re not allowed to ever, _ever_ call me that.”

 

She lays her hand across her heart. “I solemnly swear that I will never call you J.R. Except for that once.”

 

I laugh, in spite of how shitty I feel.

 

“Do you want me to order dinner? You want that thing you usually get with the chicken?”

 

I nod. “Thanks. I’ll be out in a minute.”

 

She pushes up on tiptoe and presses her lips against my cheek. Everything in my chest turns over in slow motion at her sweet, simple gesture. It’s the best thing anybody could possibly have done for me right now.

 

“Take your time,” she whispers.

 

I turn my head and kiss her once, just a peck, before I let her go and she leaves to find the menu. I take a few minutes to get my shit together and splash some water on my face before I find her again.

 

She’s digging through her enormous backpack looking for something.

 

“Can I borrow a t-shirt?” she says plaintively when I sit down next to her. “Sorry, but this shirt has been through the wash one too many times. It’s too tight and it’s been driving me crazy all day.

 

“Sure. Help yourself,” I say with a grin, not wanting to point out how much I was enjoying her tight shirt—or how much I’m going to enjoy watching her walk around the apartment all night in my clothes. She pats my knee before standing up.

 

She’s been back in my room for a few minutes when the delivery guy knocks. I’m trying to pay him, but all I have is twenties and he has no change. Why do they send delivery guys out without change?

 

“Bella!” I call from the front door. “Do you have any small bills?”

 

“In my wallet!” she yells back.

 

I grab her wallet out of her bag by the door and root around until I find a stash of singles. As I’m taking the food and folding her wallet back up, I catch a glimpse of her driver’s license in the little plastic window inside. I take just a second to glance at it. In the picture, Bella looks fifteen and anemic. Not her best moment, but it still makes me smile. Then something else catches my eye.

 

Her birthday. It’s in two weeks.

 

She rounds the corner into the living room, her tiny body swallowed up by my old University of Washington t-shirt. “Did you find my cash?”

 

“Yeah, thanks.”

 

I hand her back her wallet and take the food to the kitchen to unpack it. Bella’s birthday is coming up. She didn’t tell me about it, but now that I know, should I do something? If she didn’t tell me, maybe it’s because she doesn’t care or doesn’t want to make it a big deal. On the other hand, I feel like I should. What we are now, what she is to me… I should be doing something nice for her birthday. And when I get right down to it, I _want_ to do something nice for her birthday. I want to buy her something special, something that only she will understand. I want to make her smile. I want to make it good.

 

*0*0*

  
“Edward…” Bella rasps, her eyes closed tight, her neck arched back.

 

I’m above her, inside of her, straining, almost there. But she is too, and I won’t let go yet. Her nails cut into the small of my back on either side of my spine. I hiss and push harder against her. She groans, long and guttural in her throat. “Oh, God…”

 

“C’mon, Bella.”

 

I’m barely hanging on. Every bit of me wants to give in to the feeling spiraling low in my abdomen. My muscles are starting to shake. A drop of sweat slides down my temple and splashes onto her chest.

 

Then she sucks in a deep breath and I feel her let go. Her hands fist against my back and she whimpers. I love watching her come, but I miss most of it because I am too. My arms give out and I collapse on her, still moving against her. She’s gone limp, but her arms slide up around my shoulders to hold on to me as I ride it out. I kiss her shoulder, then the side of her neck, heaving my breath in and out as I slowly settle.

 

A few minutes later, I’m on my back and she’s crawling back into bed after a trip to the bathroom. I reach out and grab her upper arms, pulling her until she’s lying across my chest. It’s late. I know she’s probably tired since she just came over after her shift at the bar, but I want a minute with her before we both pass out.

 

“Hey,” I say, smoothing her hair back off her face with one hand. “Are you around next Thursday?”

 

It’s my lame opening into asking her out for her birthday. It’s actually on Friday, but a local band she likes is playing Thursday night.  After I found out about her birthday, I spent three days scrambling for an idea until I stumbled across the flyer for the concert near the bookstore. It seems perfect. My genius plan is to take her to the concert and maybe dinner beforehand, which I think might be our first official date. Well, it would be the first time we’ve gone out with pre-made plans to do something together. That’s a date.

 

She scrunches her nose slightly. “Nope. I’m not around next week.”

 

I scowl slightly, seriously displeased by this news. “Are you going away?”

 

“No, I’m here. My dad is coming into town though, so I’ll be busy with him.”

 

I freeze. “Your dad?”

 

Bella lifts her head off my chest to look at me, her eyebrows knitted together. “Yeah, my dad. Is that… do you…”

 

I swallow hard, terrified that she’s about to ask me to meet him and hang out with them. I’ve barely come to terms with the idea of having a relationship with Bella. Having one with her dad? Definitely not ready. I’m not ready for that kind of scrutiny, or the way he will most certainly judge me. Fathers _always_ judge me. And I _know_ I’m not ready to answer a lot of awkward dad-like questions about me and Bella.

 

“I… um… ”  
  


I don’t need to worry though, because as quickly as the concern takes over her face, it fades. She slides off the side of my chest and rolls over, shifting around until she’s comfortable.

 

“Relax. He doesn’t carry his gun on vacation,” she chuckles. “And I’ll keep him safely quarantined in my apartment.”

 

I laugh, but it’s strained and forced. Now I feel bad, like I should have shown more interest or asked to take them both out when he’s here. But Bella has moved on and seems to not even care. Maybe she had no intention of trying to make me meet him in the first place. Up until now she’s never, ever pressed me for more, so I don’t know why I thought she’d start now about this.

 

I curl up against her back and press a kiss to her shoulder. She sighs, settling in to sleep.

 

Her complete lack of concern relaxes me. I’m in the clear. I don’t have to face a dad-interrogation just yet.

 

I’m bummed that I can’t take her out for her birthday, but I get it. He’s coming to spend it with her, and he’s all she’s got, so that’s important. I guess I’ll have to wait until afterwards to have my time with her. I fall asleep convincing myself that I’m okay with this plan.

 

 

*0*0*

 

The next day is Saturday and Esme is in the store, puttering around, rearranging things and making artful stacks of the newest hardcover fiction. She hums to herself while she works, something pretty and classical, and she’s smiling a little. Every now and then, Carlisle passes her and each time, he reaches out and touches her—her shoulder, the small of her back, her hip. And every time, even if she never looks up from what she’s doing, her smile grows a little wider and she misses a note.

 

I can’t help but smile as I watch them.

 

When I turn back to the computer monitor behind the counter, my scowl comes back. I’ve been looking online for a birthday present for Bella for two hours and I’m still empty-handed. Everything feels too generic and clichéd. It’s all too impersonal or way too personal.

 

I can’t find anything that says “us”. I think that maybe this is because I don’t know what “we” are, but I ignore that as I search. She may be spending her birthday with her dad, but I still want to acknowledge it. Maybe I can get her to stop in the store between classes and take her for coffee or something. It might even be better that way, less pressure.

 

A little while later, Esme ducks behind the counter to dig in the drawer for more thumbtacks.

 

“Shopping, Edward?”

 

I click the browser window closed. “Yeah, but this is a waste of time.”

 

Esme finds her thumbtacks and straightens back up, examining me. I feel like squirming under the scrutiny.  
  
“Is this for a girl?”

 

“Um… yes.” I hesitate for just a moment before confessing everything to Esme. I need some help here. Serious, trustworthy, female help. “You know Bella? She comes in sometimes? Her birthday is coming up next week and I can’t find anything.”

 

“I see.” A knowing smile spreads across her face and I wonder if she and Carlisle have been discussing me and Bella. Probably. Taking bets, if I know them.

 

“Any ideas? I’m totally lost here.”

 

Esme is still looking at me, but her eyes are hazy, like she’s not really seeing me. “She’s a reader, right?”

 

“Well, yeah. She’s a grad student. Comparative Lit. And she comes in here often enough.”

 

Esme rubs her knuckle under her chin thoughtfully. Then she straightens up. “Come on. Let’s see what we can find.”

 

I follow her out into the store as she browses down each aisle, stopping now and then to pick up a book, consider it, then discard it. She asks me a few questions about Bella. Does she like the classics or contemporary literature more? Is she more Austen or Dostoyevsky? I can only answer a few of her questions definitively.

 

Thirty minutes of browsing has left us with a commemorative edition of _Tender Is the Night_. Esme feels that F. Scott Fitzgerald might be a pretty safe bet for Bella’s tastes. And I agree. It’s a solid choice. I think she’d appreciate it.

 

But I think I want her to do more than appreciate her gift.

 

We’re in another aisle and I’m reading the inside of the dustcover of the Fitzgerald, trying to imagine giving it to her. She’ll like it. She’ll say thank you. And that will be that.

 

“Hmmm,” Esme hums.

 

“What?”

 

She’s pulled a book off the shelf and she’s skimming a page inside. “There’s this.”

 

“What is it?”

 

She snaps the book closed and passes it to me. “Poetry.”

 

It’s a nice-looking book with a dark green cloth cover embossed with a gold design. It’s meant to look old, even though it’s not. It looks special, like something you’d keep on a nightstand by itself, not crammed into a bookshelf. I take it and flip through it at random, stopping on a page. The paper is thick and creamy, very nice. There’s one poem printed there in an elegant font, by Sara Teasdale.

_I am not yours, not lost in you,  
Not lost, although I long to be   
Lost as a candle lit at noon,   
Lost as a snowflake in the sea._

_You love me, and I find you still  
A spirit beautiful and bright,   
Yet I am I, who long to be   
Lost as a light is lost in light._

_Oh plunge me deep in love - put out  
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,   
Swept by the tempest of your love,   
A taper in a rushing wind._

The blood rushes out of my face and I swallow hard as the power of the words hits me square in the chest.

I flip the page and read another one, this time by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
    
    
      _And yet, because thou overcomest so,_
    
    
    
      _Because thou art more noble and like a king,_
    
    
    
      _Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling_
    
    
    
      _Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow_
    
    
    
      _Too close against thine heart henceforth to know_
    
    
    
      _How it shook when alone.  Why, conquering_
    
    
    
      _May prove as lordly and complete a thing_
    
    
    
      _In lifting upward, as in crushing low!_
    
    
    
      _And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword_
    
    
    
      _To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,_
    
    
    
      _Even so, Belovëd, I at last record,_
    
    
    
      _Here ends my strife.  If thou invite me forth,_
    
    
    
      _I rise above abasement at the word._
    
    
    
      _Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth!_
    
    
    
      
    
    
    
    Another page, another poem, this one by Thomas Moore:
    
    
      
    

_'Twas a new feeling - something more  
Than we had dared to own before,  
Which then we hid not;  
We saw it in each other's eye,  
And wished, in every half-breathed sigh,  
To speak, but did not._

_She felt my lips' impassioned touch -  
'Twas the first time I dared so much,  
And yet she chid not;  
But whispered o'er my burning brow,  
'Oh, do you doubt I love you now?'  
Sweet soul! I did not._

_Warmly I felt her bosom thrill,  
I pressed it closer, closer still,  
Though gently bid not;  
Till - oh! the world hath seldom heard  
Of lovers, who so nearly erred,  
And yet, who did not._

I flip through a few more pages. They’re all different, but they all say the same thing. They say _a lot_.

Esme clears her throat. “You know her better than I do, Edward. You know which book would be more… appropriate.”

I glance up at her. She’s giving me a serious, knowing look. I get it. Giving a girl like Bella a book like this would _mean_ something. You don’t give poetry like this to a girl that you’re casually sleeping with. You give poetry like this to a girl you love.

Esme raises one eyebrow at me in question, then she smiles and looks down. Her meaning is clear—only I can answer this question.

I’m still holding both books—the thoroughly appropriate Fitzgerald and the poetry anthology that says a whole lot more.

“Thanks,” I finally say. “One of these will be perfect.”

“Glad to help,” Esme says. “I’m sure one of them will be.”

I take both books back up to the register. I stash the Fitzgerald on the shelf behind the register in the “hold” section, because I know all I need to know about that book. But the poetry I lay on the counter.

I take a deep breath and start reading.

*0*0*

The next day, Esme stops by late in the day to go to dinner with Carlisle; I’m closing so he can leave early. I catch her eye and beckon her over to the register.

“Need help with wrapping?” she asks with a knowing smile.

“How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Nothing too frilly?”

She smirks. “I’ll restrain myself. So which is it?”

I take a deep breath and slide the poetry anthology across the counter to her. Her answering smile is radiant.

She opens her mouth to tell me something, but the bell over the front door rings and we both turn on instinct to look.

My heart sinks when I see who it is.

“Shit.”

Esme looks back to me, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “Edward?”

I sigh. “It’s my father.”

Her features shift into concern. She’s caught just enough from me over the years to know our relationship isn’t a smooth one.

“Do you need a minute to talk to him?”

I nod grimly. “Yeah, can you watch the register?”

“Of course.” She squeezes my arm briefly in encouragement. I thank her and slip out from behind the counter.

Edward Masen, Sr. is standing just inside the front door of the store, hands clasped lightly in front of him, looking at his surroundings with absolutely no interest . It’s Sunday, so he’s dressed down, but that still means a ruthlessly starched dress shirt and a sports coat. The shirt is light blue, not white, and he’s left off his tie. It’s about as undone as my father ever gets. When I was younger, I remember being impressed by the way he looked. He always looked stronger, smarter, more powerful than anyone else’s dad. Of course, their dads actually showed up at the occasional school function. Mine never did. He was too busy being stronger, smarter and more powerful.

He’s almost fifty, but he still looks good. People have always told me I’m the spitting image of him. On the surface, that’s okay. He’s tall like me, with the same thick, rusty brown hair and angular features. But my father looks like he’s perpetually grinding his teeth and he looks like he might break if he smiles too much. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him and as I get closer, I can see he’s looking older, more tired. He’s paler than usual and his eyes look a little sunken. I guess that’s the price of his singular drive to succeed.

When he sees me winding my way around the tables, he lowers his hands to his sides and stands up a little straighter, almost at attention. His eyes drop down me briefly and I can see him taking in my faded plaid shirt and worn jeans. I roll my eyes.

“Can I help you with something?” I ask, keeping my voice clipped and professional.

“Knock it off, J.R.” he says wearily.

“Look, I thought I made myself clear on the phone, so if you came down here to continue that same discussion, there’s really no point.”

“I came down here to offer you a job.”

I startle and take a step back. “What?”

He casts one quick look around himself at the store. “Since you seem to lack initiative these days, I thought if you had a concrete offer in front of you, it might help give you something to focus on. You know I always intended for you to come to work for the company. I imagined you’d get your feet wet out in the industry first, but since that doesn’t seem to be happening, then—”

I hold up a hand to cut him off. “I already have a job.”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “You have a time-killer. It’s time to get a career.”

“God, how many times do I need to say it before you get it? Have I not been clear? When I dropped out of the business program, I wasn’t just feeling pressured or lazy. I _hated_ it. I’m not doing it. I’m never going back to it. I know you had your plans. I was supposed to get my M.B.A. and come into the business. But Dad, it’s time for you to face it that those were just that— _your_ plans. Not mine.”

He stares at me with green eyes that are so like mine, but wreathed with lines and stress. He looks angry, which I’m used to, but for the first time, I think I see something else there. He’s genuinely confused. He really just doesn’t get why I’m saying no, why I’ve _always_ said no. Yes, he’s a stranger to me now, but I can also see that I’m a stranger to him, too. It’s so depressing and sad.

“So this is it?” he snaps. “Selling paperbacks in this little store is really what you want out of life?”

There’s the aggression I know so well. Whatever uncertainty I glimpsed there is now thoroughly repressed. Investing is a fast and vicious game and you have to be a shark to survive and succeed. My father has more than succeeded. He’s a man-eater. I knew almost from the start that I didn’t have that killer instinct, at least about the stock market. It’s what finally drove me out of the program and it seems to be what divides him from me.

“Look, this might not be a choice you’d ever make, but that doesn’t make it a less valid one. Carlisle spends his whole life on this store and I respect him for it. It’s his passion, whether it makes him rich or not.”

Once again, I think I see a flicker of something unfamiliar in my dad’s eyes. I wonder if I just hurt him, talking about my respect for Carlisle like that. But I figure that just makes us even so I don’t stop to dwell on it.

I close my eyes to take a deep breath and get some perspective. I remember Bella’s words from the other night, telling me that we needed to take a break from each other, at least until we can both come to terms with this impasse. When I open my eyes again, I finally feel like I have some clarity—a tiny bit, at least. I stay focused on her, the memory her arms around me that night, her whispers in my ear, her kiss on my cheek.

“Dad, I think we need a break. It’s clear we just don’t understand each other anymore, if we ever did. And I can’t keep having this fight with you. This is my life, like it or not. When you’re ready to talk to me without making me feel like shit about that, you can come back here, but not until then.”

I sound so calm, so sure of myself. He must think so too, because he says nothing. He just stares at me like he’s never seen me before. Maybe he hasn’t.

Finally, he straightens his shoulders. “Maybe you’re right,” he mutters. He casts one last look around himself at the bookstore and shakes his head in disbelief. “Good luck with all of this, J.R.”

Then he turns and leaves without another word.

I am stunned. I might have kept my shit together while he was here, but now that he’s gone, I feel shaky and weak. I just stand by the door, staring at the place where he was just standing.

“Edward?” It’s Carlisle, edging up behind me. Esme is hovering just behind him. Her eyes are wide and I can tell that everything in her wants to hug me, because that’s just Esme’s way, but she’s holding herself back to see what I need.

“I’m really sorry about the scene, Carlisle.”

He’s shaking his head before I even finish. “No, I’m sorry. It seems the two of you are having a really rough time of it. I wish there was something I could do to help.”

I raise my head and look at them, standing side by side, all full of concern and compassion, never anything less than fully supportive. “You have no idea how much you help just by being here,” I tell them honestly.

Then Esme does hug me, because she can’t restrain herself anymore. She flings her arms around my shoulders and pulls me into her tight embrace.

“Poor thing,” she murmurs. And I’m really sorry she and Carlisle could never have kids, because nobody makes you feel better like Esme does. Somebody sure missed out by not having her as their mother.

I hug her back briefly. “Thank you.”

She releases me and runs a hand over my hair quickly, smiling up at me.

“Do you need a few minutes to yourself? Or do you need us to stay?” Carlisle asks.

I shake my head. “No, I’m good. You guys have fun at dinner. I just want to get back to work and forget about that for a while.

Carlisle steps to the side and lets me do just that.

 

  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
  



	8. Her Life

**Mighty big thanks to WhatsMyNomdePlume for beta’ing and holding my hand through this one.**

 

*0*0*

 

I’m sitting behind the register at work. I should be cleaning up the disaster that is Carlisle’s incorrectly-entered sales, but instead I’m spinning Bella’s birthday present in slow circles on the counter while I stare at the little white blank note card and try to figure out what to write.

 

Esme sent it back to the store with Carlisle this morning and, as she promised, she restrained herself. It’s wrapped in cream tissue paper and tied with a dark green fabric bow. The bow is all fancy and perfectly done because it’s Esme, but otherwise, it’s simple and just right. Esme sent it with a heavy white note card tucked under the bow, but she left the card blank for me to fill out.

 

So far I’ve managed to write Bella’s name across the front.

 

All the words I come up with are either too cold and impersonal or too intimate. I need something in between for us.

 

Don’t I? Fuck, I don’t even know anymore. I don’t know what we are or what we’re becoming. I’m still not even sure what I’m looking for. More. Just more.

 

It doesn’t help that I haven’t seen her for five days. It’s making me insecure and uncertain, even though I know it’s just because her dad is here. She hasn’t called though—not that she ever really called me before he was here unless we were setting up the time she was coming over. I texted her once, but it was nothing major. Just _Hi, how’s it going?_

 

She answered: _Great! Busy! See you soon!_

 

It sounded all positive and happy, but did nothing to make me feel better. In fact, it made me feel worse. She was “great!” She was “busy!” All without me.

 

I scowl at the card, willing some words to appear. They don’t. I don’t know why I’m even stressing about it. Sure, today is her birthday, but it’s not like I’ll see her. I have no idea when I’ll see her again. I don’t know how long her dad is staying. I’m getting really annoyed with her absence.

 

With a growl of frustration, I pick up my pen and scrawl “Love, Edward” across the card.

 

There. Done. And I said the word “love”. It hardly matters. Once she reads the book—reads the poems I’ve picked out for her and given to her as a gift— she’s going to know exactly what I mean and how I feel.

 

Whatever. The present is done. I put it back underneath the counter, figuring I’ll give it to her the next time she’s at my place.

 

The bell over the door rings and I glance up to see if I need to help someone. There’s a man milling around the best-seller tables up front, peeking at covers and the backs of dust jackets. Definitely a browser. He’ll probably look around for ten minutes and maybe buy a David Baldacci novel.

 

I spend a few minutes organizing the new computer program and when I look up again, the man has moved further into the store. He’s in the classics section now, browsing titles, but seems to be searching for something. Not what I expected. His type doesn’t generally move past the front twenty feet of the store. I decide to see if he needs help.

 

“Can I help you find something?” I ask as I approach him.

 

He looks up, startled. “Uh, no, that’s alright. I’m just looking.” He pauses for a second and then reaches up to scratch the back of his neck. “Well, I’m trying to pick something out for someone. A gift.”

 

“Oh, sure. You’re looking for a classic, then? You think your friend would be interested in that?”

 

He smiles a little and shakes his head. “To tell you the truth, she’s probably read all these already. Smart as a whip.”

 

When I only give him a puzzled smile, he shrugs. “My daughter. Goes to school at the University. She’s an English major.”

 

“Got it. So nothing too mainstream.”

 

“Ah…” he starts, then lets out a gusty frustrated exhale. “I have no idea. I already got her some perfume, but I was walking by on my way to meet her for lunch and I thought I’d try to get her something a little more personal. She sure does love her books.”

 

He rubs his fingers along his jaw and I stare at his profile for a second. It all slots into place. I can even see the resemblance. Their hair is almost the same color, except Bella’s turns red in the sun and her father’s is liberally salted with gray. They have the same dark brown eyes, too. Both have a kind of wisdom and intelligence in their expression that has nothing to do with age.

 

I make a split-second decision to play dumb. She hasn’t introduced us yet, and if I do it, then it will seem weird that I haven’t met him so far. Like I’ve been avoiding him or something. Which I kind of was, but now that he’s dropped into my lap, I decide it could be worse. He seems alright. Not some scary testosterone-fueled cop who’d break my face for looking at his daughter wrong. He seems soft-spoken and kind of harmless actually.

 

I clear my throat. “Well, if she’s a book lover but you’re not sure what she’s read, maybe a special edition of a classic? That way, even if she’s read it, she still might appreciate the thought.”

 

He gives me an appraising look and his right eyebrow lifts. I know that eyebrow. It makes me smile. “Now there’s a thought. You folks carry stuff like that here?”

 

“As a matter of fact, we do. Come to the register. The owner’s wife put something in the hold section that might work, but then she decided she didn’t want it.” It’s close enough to the truth.

 

He follows me back across the store to the register and I duck behind it to retrieve the F. Scott Fitzgerald that I decided not to get for Bella. Thoroughly appropriate and perfect for her _father_ to give to her, not me. He turns it over and examines the back.

 

“It’s got a special section in the back with critical essays and cultural references,” I point out.

 

He gives a slow nod of his head. “Sounds right up her alley. I’ll take it.”

 

I smile broadly, pleased to have had a hand in picking this out for Bella. I start to ring up his purchase.

 

“So you said your daughter is a student at UW?”

 

“Yeah, in the graduate program there.” He shakes his head fondly. “Her old man didn’t even get through two years of community college and she’s going to have _Doctor_ in front of her name when she’s all done. Can you beat that?”

 

His pride in her is evident. I get it. It’s easy to be proud of Bella. She’s amazing.

 

“She sounds very smart,” I say evenly.

 

“You bet. She’s going to Europe next year for school. Crazy, huh? I tell you, she’s really going places. Straight to the top.”

 

My stomach clenches when he mentions Europe. Bella hasn’t said a word about that since she first told Alice about applying to programs. Has it all been decided and she hasn’t told me? I have no idea, but her father is still talking and suddenly I want to make a decent impression, even though he clearly has no idea who I am.

 

“She sounds really special. And you sound really proud.”

 

His whole face goes soft. His smile is small and hard to see under his dark moustache, but his eyes crinkle up in the corners just like Bella’s do when she’s smiling. “I am. That girl is all I have in the world. Seeing her do so well for herself… Well, it makes all the hard times worthwhile, you know?”

 

I nod tightly. “I can imagine.”

 

He chooses a gift bag for the book from the little rack next to the register. He picks the purple one with stars. I almost correct him and tell him she’d probably like the pale green striped one better, but I don’t. It’s not my place—at least not right now.

 

After I’ve rung him up, he seems to remember something.   
  


“Oh, can I ask you something, son?”

 

I find myself smiling against my will because he called me “son”, even though he didn’t mean anything by it.   
  


“Of course. What can I do for you?”

 

“She asked me to meet her after her class for lunch at some place near here, but I’m all turned around. I never come to Seattle. Can you tell me which direction I should be going?”

 

“Sure. Let me see.”

 

He shuffles through the bags he’s carrying and produces a battered map of Seattle with a post-it note stuck to it. It has “Il Bennetto” written in Bella’s tidy handwriting across it. I know the place, since it’s only a couple of blocks away, so I circle it on his map and point out which way to go when he leaves.

 

“I sure do appreciate it,” he says, “Thanks a million for your help with the gift. Not really my cup of tea, you know?”

 

I think about Esme helping me with the same thing last week. “Yeah, I know how it is. Enjoy your lunch.”

 

“We will.”

 

Then he leaves and I watch through the front door for a minute to make sure he’s gone in the right direction. When I return to the register, I see he’s left one of his bags. I peek inside and see a small, wrapped box. Fuck. His other present for her.

 

I debate for a minute about what to do. I could just put it behind the register and maybe call Bella later to tell her that he’d been in and left it. But it’s her present and today is her birthday. Maybe he was planning to give it to her along with the book at lunch.

 

Maybe I could bring it to him.

 

I know exactly where he’s headed. It would be a really nice thing for me to do. And if I’m being completely honest with myself, I want to see her. I want to see them together. He wasn’t so bad. Actually, he was great. Not scary or intimidating. We even seemed to hit it off. If I show up at the restaurant with the bag, he’ll even be grateful. Bella will introduce us officially, then maybe he’ll insist I stay. Suddenly it doesn’t seem quite like the nightmare scenario it did just last week. I think I’d enjoy it, actually.

 

Before I can chicken out, I head back to the office to see Carlisle. I explain that Bella’s father was in and left a package behind. Before I’ve even finished explaining, he’s waving me out the door, telling me to take as long as I need for lunch.

 

After I’ve shrugged into my jacket and slung my messenger bag over my shoulder, I head back out front. At the last minute, I detour to the register and grab Bella’s gift from underneath, tucking it in my bag. If the moment seems right, maybe I’ll give it to her today, too.

 

As I leave the store and head down the street to Il Bennetto, I feel good, excited even. I might have been leery of meeting Bella’s father last week, but now that I have—even though it was inadvertent—I feel like I can handle all this. It’ll be good. It’s time for me to step up to the plate and get serious, and it doesn’t get more serious than meeting parents.

 

It’s kind of cool out, but clear and surprisingly sunny. Il Bennetto has a bunch of tables out front on the sidewalk and since it’s nice, they’ve seated people out there. There are tall heaters in between the tables to keep it comfortable. I spot Bella and her father right away.

 

I also spot the table full of people with them.

 

There are probably half a dozen people, all talking and laughing together. Everyone is around my age and I immediately recognize Angela, the girl we ran into at the coffee shop a few weeks back, sitting on the other side of Bella’s dad. Every person except her father has a backpack slung over the back of their chair. These are her classmates, most likely her study group. She’s brought them all to lunch to meet her father.

 

I freeze where I am on the sidewalk, letting people stream past me on either side. All I can do is stare. Bella is listening to something Angela is saying, and her face is lit up with anticipation. She’s already half-smiling at whatever Angela is saying. She’s leaning a little towards her dad, with one hand on his forearm. As Angela tells the punch line of her story, the whole table erupts in laughter. Her dad shakes his head in amusement. On Bella’s other side, a guy with light brown hair leans towards her, one elbow braced casually on the back of her chair. As I continue watching, he leans in and says something in her ear and she laughs again.

 

The way they’re sitting doesn’t make it look like she’s with him. But he’s definitely looking at her like he’s into her. The guy looks like he’s seconds away from stroking her hair or something. I remember her murmured conversation with Angela the day she found out she’d been plagiarized. _Riley._ The one from her study group. The one she tried to keep me from hearing about. I want to fucking hit something, preferably that asshole’s face.

 

But do I even have the right? After all, here I am, the one standing alone on the sidewalk. He’s the one in there with the rest of them, part of her life, meeting her father. I’m the afterthought that she hasn’t spoken to in five days.

 

I feel like a fucking idiot. All this time I’ve been freaking out over how I feel about her, when the real problem is how she feels about _me_. Or how she _doesn’t_ feel about me, since that seems to be the issue.

 

I think about just turning around and leaving, but what then? She’ll never know I was here and in a couple of days’ time, she’ll call me after work at two a.m. and because I want her, I’ll tell her to come over and we’ll go right back to what we were before. And now I know that’s nowhere near good enough. Even though I’m dreading what comes next, I know I need to do this.

 

So I push through the pedestrians and wind my way around the other diners until I’m right behind her, just between her and that asshole Riley, who’s still leaning in too close to her. Oddly, it’s her dad that notices me first. He looks surprised to see me standing there. I quickly raise the bag he left at the store.

 

“Sorry to bother you, sir, but you left this at the bookstore. It seemed important, so I brought it over.”

 

“Well, that was certainly nice of you. I do appreciate it.”

 

He smiles and reaches for it just as Bella turns to look up at me. She’s stunned and has gone pale.

 

“Edward… what are you—“

 

“You know this guy, Bells?” her father asks, confused.   
  


I answer him, but I’m looking right at her. “Yeah, she does know me.”

 

Color floods back into her cheeks.  She glances away quickly, eyes down. She’s fucking _embarrassed_ that I’m here. It’s like a fist to my chest and I can barely breathe.

 

I see her swallow hard.  “I just... um, Dad—”

 

I don’t want to stand around and watch her flail her way through this one. And I certainly don’t want to hear what kind of label she puts on me for her father’s benefit. Angela, the one other person here who’s met me, looks apprehensively between me and Bella, chewing her lip. I wonder what Bella’s told her about me and who she thinks I am to Bella.

 

Then I realize that it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. Whatever she’s told them, it’s nowhere near the truth and nothing like what I want it to be, or else I’d be the one sitting next to her for her birthday lunch, meeting her father and her inner circle.

 

“Sorry to interrupt your lunch,” I cut in, silencing Bella mid-sentence, and giving a hard edge to my voice that I’m sure she can pick up on. “Clearly it’s a special day. I’ll get out of your way.”

 

Then I turn and push my way back out the way I came. I’m so fucking angry I can barely see straight. I have no idea where I’m even going, I just need to get away from here and fast. I want to hit things and drink heavily—whatever it takes to wipe this day away. I get about fifty feet down the sidewalk when I hear her rapid footsteps behind me.

 

“Edward, wait!”

 

I stop and turn to see Bella rushing up behind me, hair flying, her face flushed. I can feel my pulse pounding in my neck and my teeth are grinding together. I’m so mad that I can’t even think, so I don’t plan my words, I just start shouting.

 

“Why didn’t you want me to meet your father, Bella?”

 

She stops short a few feet away from me and her eyes go wide. “What?”

 

I wave a hand at the scene I just left behind. “Everybody you know in Seattle is celebrating your birthday with your dad and he doesn’t even fucking know who I am.”

 

She may have been shocked when I first turned on her, but now she’s recovered. She rounds on me, eyes flashing, spine straight. She points her finger at me accusingly.

 

“Last week, you’d have rather chewed your arm off than meet my dad!”

 

“Yeah, well, maybe you should have asked me. I might have surprised you. But then again, after what I just saw, I think you had a pretty good reason for not wanting me around for this.”

 

“What the hell are you talking about?”

 

“Is that him? Riley?”

 

Bella startles and blinks once. “Who?”

 

“You didn’t want me to hear you talking about him with Angela. Riley. I see why now.”

 

Her eyes narrow at me. “You didn’t see _anything_! I didn’t want you to hear me talking about him because there was nothing to say. I didn’t want to involve him because he doesn’t matter.”

 

“Looks like he wants to matter.”

 

She plants her hands on her hips, getting angrier by the minute. But that’s just fine, because I’m fucking furious.

 

“Yeah, he does, but I don’t want him, for reasons that continue to elude me. That’s why I left him out of it. If I gave him an opening, he’d have assumed too much. And I didn’t want him to.”

 

“So why the fuck is he having lunch with you and your dad when I haven’t seen you in a fucking week?”

 

“Since when have you wanted in on my life, Edward? You’ve been pretty clear about your boundaries right from the start and meeting parents was never on the agenda.”

 

“Goddammit, you _know_ it’s not like it was in the beginning anymore!”

 

“Oh, do I? You spend all night chatting up other girls, but you still want to fuck me in the middle of the night, so that means I _matter_? During which two a.m. booty call was I supposed to figure out that we had developed some sort of relationship? Did I miss the part when you told me you cared?”

 

Now it’s my turn to be startled. Is that all she sees when she thinks of us? A series of fuck sessions? I kept thinking we’d become more, but maybe I was the only one who felt that way. I thought I was making myself clear, but maybe all Bella ever saw was the sex. Maybe it was all she wanted to see. I feel dumb and naïve and that makes me even angrier. It makes me want to lash out and make her hurt, too.

 

“I thought we were more than that, but maybe you only save that shit for your fellow Ph.D. candidates. A loser like me couldn’t expect more from you, I guess. My mistake. I was stupid to think that I was ever anything more than some anonymous fuck you picked up in a bar.”

 

It works. I hurt her. Bella takes a step back like she’s been slapped and her eyes go wide. The color drains out of her face and she’s looking at me like she doesn’t know me. I feel sick. There’s a long moment of stunned silence and the harshness of what I’ve said—what we’ve _both_ said—starts to sink in. I open my mouth but she cuts me off before I can say anything.

 

“Fuck you!” she hisses. “You _asshole_! How dare you?”

 

“You already did fuck me, Bella. And I guess that’s all it was.”

 

Her mouth is hanging open in shock. My insides are in knots and I just need to get away from her and all this miserable disappointment. I’m about to turn and leave, but one last thing occurs to me. I dig into my messenger bag and pull her present free. I don’t want it. I don’t want a single reminder of this nightmare once I’m gone. I thrust it towards her and her hands come up automatically to take it, even though she looks confused.

 

“Happy birthday,” I spit, before I turn on my heel and walk away without looking back.

 

*0*0*

 

When I hear Jasper’s key in the front door several hours later, I’m slouched on the couch with a bottle of Jack and a shot glass. I stopped bothering to set the bottle down between shots since it was too much work to reach for it whenever I needed a refill. I’m not completely obliterated yet, but it won’t be long now. I tried to go back to work after our fight on the sidewalk, but I was so angry and useless that Carlisle eventually sent me home early. It’s been just me and the bottle until Jasper got here.

 

Before Jasper even gets inside, my phone buzzes from between the cushions of the couch… _again_. I don’t have to look to know that it’s Bella calling, like she has been for the past hour and a half. It was bad enough to see her name lighting up my phone when I was alone. I can’t deal with Jasper seeing it, too. So I reach over and power it off. It’s not like I’ve been listening to her messages anyway.

 

I hear him drop his keys and his bag, then walk towards the side of the couch. Then there’s silence. I chance a look at him. His arms are crossed over his chest and he’s staring down at me with such disapproval that I actually want to flinch. Instead I roll my eyes and take another sip of my drink.

 

“Well, this is just _awesome_ ,” he finally says, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

 

“I don’t need to hear it, Jasper.”

 

“Oh, really? Because it sure looks like you do.”

 

“Just… leave me alone. Where’s Alice? Isn’t she waiting to drag you off to another club or something?”

 

He huffs. “She’s over at her _friend’s_ place,” he says with emphasis, and I know he’s talking about Bella. “She got in some huge fight with her boyfriend and now Ally’s got to go hold her hand while she cries and they eat ice cream or something. Seems the girl is devastated.”

 

I groan. “I don’t need to hear this shit. Just stay out of it.”

  
“Can’t,” he says shortly. “I’m already in it, obviously. So what the fuck happened?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Really? Because it seems like you both said some really ugly stuff so something must have happened.”

 

I don’t respond, I just slouch further into the couch in the hopes that he’ll just give up and go away. It doesn’t work.  
  


He lets out a disgusted little huff. “You’re an idiot, Edward. That girl… she’s great. And whatever your fucking issues are, they aren’t worth—”

 

“She’s ashamed of me,” I say quietly, cutting him off. My head feels entirely too muddled and thick for this, but Jasper’s not backing down, so I have no choice but to deal with him.

 

“What?”

 

“She was embarrassed to see me. She doesn’t want anybody in her real life to know about us. Do you get it? She’s fucking _ashamed_ of me!” I shout.

 

“ _You’re_ ashamed of you!” he shouts back.

 

That stops me cold. I squint at him, baffled. “What the hell does that mean?”

 

“You’re ashamed of yourself, Edward. That’s what I mean. What the fuck are you doing with your life? Because if you’ve got some grand plan, I have to confess, I can’t see it. Ever since you dropped out of business school, you’ve just been drifting.”

 

“You agreed with me when I said I wanted to drop out!”

 

“I did! You were miserable and it was all wrong for you. But that only meant you had to figure out what _was_ right for you. Instead, you just… stopped. And it’s like you did it on purpose. You’re _still_ doing it on purpose. I mean, when are you going to stop throwing your entire life away just to spite your dad?”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“You. And this need you have to fuck everything up just to prove you can.”

 

“Look, I might have issues with my family, but none of that has anything to do with Bella. That is its own kind of fucked up.”

 

“It’s only fucked up if you let it be. Step up and give her something to hang on to and maybe she’d let you into her life. Just a thought.”

 

“Or maybe she was just using me this whole time.”

 

“Like you were using her?”

 

“It wasn’t like that!” I shout. “At least, not at the end. Not for me.”

 

“Did she know that? I bet you didn’t say a fucking thing to her, did you?”

 

“It’s not that easy—“

 

Jasper sighs, long and tired. “Of course it is, Edward. It’s the easiest thing in the world, as soon as you quit complicating it.”

 

“This wasn’t all me. I didn’t do this.”

 

“It’s never just one person. I’m sure she did shit, too, and yeah, you’ll have to deal with it. But you can start being the grown-up here if you pull it together and fix this with Bella. Then fix shit with yourself. Because this,” he waves a dismissive hand at me, “This is just a fucking waste.”

 

Now it’s my turn to sigh. I’ve never been so tired. “My day’s been shitty enough already. You can stop cutting me to pieces whenever you feel like it.”

 

Jasper shakes his head slowly. “I don’t need to cut you to pieces. You’re doing a fantastic job of that all by yourself.”

 

“Whatever.”

 

Jasper snorts. “Yeah, _whatever_. Look, I’m going to Alice’s tonight, and we’re leaving tomorrow morning for Bellingham for the week, so please pull yourself together. It would suck to come back and find you still wallowing.”

 

“Jasper…”

 

He holds his hands up defensively. “I’ll quit now. Just… think about this, Edward. Really think.”

 

I scowl and throw back what’s left in my glass as he heads back to his bedroom to pack up his stuff. After he’s gone, I stay right where I am, on the couch. I keep clutching the bottle but I don’t refill my glass. I have to decide. Keep drinking and slide into oblivion or stop, sober up and face shit. With a tired sigh, I set the bottle down and go to the kitchen for a glass of water.

 

For the rest of the night, I just sit on the couch and stare at the darkened TV and think about what Jasper said. Is that really what he thinks I’ve been doing with my life? Wasting it away just to spite my father? _Is_ that what I’ve been doing?

 

Jasper and I have been friends, _good_ friends, since we were eighteen. There’s pretty much nobody on earth who knows me better. He wouldn’t have said all that shit if he didn’t mean it and it makes me feel sick and uneasy that he’s been thinking that way about me. Have I really been letting my life slide into failure just because my parents did? Because if that’s what’s been going on, Jasper’s right, I’m a dick. He didn’t have to be such an asshole about it, but if what he said is true, then maybe I needed to hear it.

 

Yeah, I’m pissed at my dad and profoundly disappointed by my mother. But why am I letting them take what’s left of my happiness? I thought I was content just floating along with no responsibilities and no commitments.

 

But maybe all I’ve been is lost. And lonely.

 

Bella’s absence rears up and threatens to drown me whole. God, I want her. I’m still hurt and I’m so fucking mad at her, but I still want her. I don’t know if I can have her or if she wants me the way I need her to want me. But right now, the fact that I’ve lost her is like a hole in my chest. I can barely breathe around the physical pain of it. If I wasn’t sure if I loved her before, then I’m absolutely positive I do now. It wouldn’t hurt this much to lose someone unless I love her.

 

I pick up my phone a million times, rubbing my thumb across her name and the number of missed calls. I almost call her back… once, twice, all night long. But I don’t. I’m still half-drunk and angry and confused and I’ll say all the wrong things and drive her away for good. Worse, if she’s calling to tell me we’re done, I just can’t face that tonight. Tomorrow. That’s soon enough to face what’s next.

 

I force down a ton of water and three Advil and tell myself that I’ll start making it all better tomorrow. Everything. Her, us… myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	9. Her Absence

**  
**

I have to work the next day, which could either be a good or bad thing—I can’t tell yet. In one very basic sense it sucks, because I’m really hung over, in spite of the water and Advil. I’m tempted to call in sick, but I’ve never done that and I feel bad doing it for a stupid, self-indulgent reason like this. Plus, I have shit to do when I get to the store—something I’ve put off long enough already.

 

So I crawl out of bed and pull myself together, and when I arrive, Carlisle’s in his usual spot behind the register waiting for me. I follow my routine, too, setting his hot tea down next to my large coffee. He acts surprised to see it and thanks me profusely for being so thoughtful, even though I bring him a cup of tea every single day that I come in.

 

He moves off the stool to make room for me and putters around, gathering up his stuff. He’s been hard at work, plowing through the Quickbooks manual Charlotte left for him, which is now littered with post-its and little penciled-in notes in the margins.

 

I stow my bag and shift uncomfortably, trying to figure out how to say what I intend to. I was really determined when I left the apartment this morning, and I know it will make him happy, but still, I’m having a hard time getting the words out.

 

I clear my throat experimentally. My voice sounds all low and raspy, part of my hangover, but it can’t be helped.

  
“Um, hey, Carlisle? Can I ask you something? Or… well, talk to you about something?”

 

“Of course, Edward. What can I do for you?”

 

It makes me smile a little. Always so polite and proper. “Well, you know how you said… well, you offered… I mean, if you still want me to, I’d like to manage the store.”

 

I couldn’t have botched that up more if I tried and I certainly didn’t sound like management material, but Carlisle beams at me like I just gave him the best gift a man could ask for.

 

“I’d love that, Edward. The offer still stands. Esme will be delighted. She’s been on me to take off more so we can do some traveling. There’s no one I would like to leave the store with more than you.”

 

I smile at my feet, a little embarrassed by his praise and gratitude, but also pleased. I’m not entirely sure why I decided to take this step first, or what it even means, but this has been hanging over my head for years. Step up and take control or stand back and let it keep passing me by.

 

I’m stepping up.

 

*0*0*

 

I spend the rest of the morning with Carlisle, discussing how my new status will work and what will change. It turns out, not much. I’ve been all but managing the store as it is for years. I already know the opening and closing procedures, how to do the bank deposits, and how to run the new computerized bookkeeping program better than Carlisle. I have to learn payroll, but I glance over it and by mid-afternoon, I’ve pretty much figured it out. That sort of thing has always come easily to me.

 

The distraction is good. I need to deal with Bella but I also need enough distance so that when I do talk to her, I’m not as angry and raw as I was yesterday. Otherwise I’m liable to say something stupid and make things worse. When I turn my phone back on mid-afternoon, I see that she hasn’t called since last night, which makes me feel like shit. I want to call her immediately, but since I don’t know how the conversation is going to go, I don’t want to start it while I’m at work. I’m forcing myself to wait until I’m home to do it.

 

Spending the afternoon manning the register almost makes me lose my mind. All I can think about is her. It’s a little bit of a relief that she hasn’t called again today, because ignoring her calls again would be awful; but on the other hand, she hasn’t called today. I’m so scared of what that means.

 

I pick up my phone so many times, looking at her missed calls. I want to talk to her so badly. I know I should ask her a million questions, demand a million explanations, but mostly, I just want to go see her and make things okay again. I just pray that she wants to.

 

By five o’clock, I feel like I’ll go crazy if I don’t call her soon. I’m even debating asking Carlisle if I can cut out early to do it. Some way to start my new tenure as store manager. When my phone rings, I lunge for it, not even caring anymore what kind of plan I had or how I was going to handle things. I just want to hear her voice and tell her that I’m on my way over and that we’ll sort it all out when I get there.

 

“Bella?”

 

There’s a pause on the other end of the line and I realize that I didn’t even look at my phone when I answered it. I just assumed it was her.

 

“Um…is this Edward?” a young, high-pitched female voice asks.

 

“Yeah, this is Edward. Who’s this?”

 

“This is, um, Jane? Eddie’s girlfriend? Edward Senior, I mean?” Her voice goes up at the end of every sentence, turning them all into questions.

 

“Oh,” I say, trying to figure out why Dad’s girlfriend would be calling me. “Is there something you need?”

 

“Um… he’s, well… Eddie’s in the hospital. I figured you should know. Or something. In case you want to come.”

 

“ _What?_ What happened to him?”

 

“Um… he had a… oh, what did they call it? A myo— something cardio? The doctor said it was like a heart attack.”

 

“He had a _heart attack_?” I’m shouting, but I can’t help it. My pulse is racing and this girl is just babbling incoherently. “What did the doctor say? How is he?”

 

“They said, um… fuck. I don’t remember. There were all these complicated names for stuff, and…” Her voice abruptly gets pinched and high and I can tell she’s crying.

 

“Jane? Hey, Jane, calm down. I’m on my way, okay?”

 

Jane mutters her understanding and gives me the hospital details before I end the call, already racing through the store to the back room.  
  


“Carlisle? That was… it’s my dad. He’s in the hospital. I have to go.”

 

Carlisle stands up and moves around the desk until he’s in front of me. “Of course you have to go. Will you be alright? Are you sure you’re okay to drive? I can close up and take you myself.”

 

I smile in spite of the grim situation. “No, really. That’s so generous, but you don’t have to. I can get there fine. I’m sorry to just cut out, especially today after everything we’ve talked about.”

 

“Edward.” Carlisle gives me a stern look. “You know you don’t need to apologize or explain yourself. He’s your father. You need to be there.”

 

“Thanks. You’re too good to me, Carlisle.”

 

“It’s nothing.” He brushes off my compliment and pulls my coat off the stack of boxes in the corner, pushing it towards me. “Now go. And give us a call when you have the time and let us know how he’s doing.”

 

“I will.”

 

*0*0*

 

It’s rush hour by the time I get out of the store and to my car, and the drive to Harborview Medical Center is endless. I sit through countless red lights and try not to think of what might be happening, what might be going wrong at the hospital.

 

Once I get there, it takes me another thirty minutes to find Jane. I forgot to ask her what floor she was on and since my father came in through the E.R., the computer records aren’t current. I try to call Jane back on her cell, but she’s got it turned off, which really pisses me off. Who the hell turns off their phone in the middle of an emergency?

 

I’m finally directed to the fifth floor nurses’ station. The woman there is older and thin, with a tired-looking face at odds with her soft pink scrubs.

 

“Excuse me, I’m looking for my father? Edward Masen?”

 

She gives me a dismissive glance and turns to glance at a white board over her shoulder.

  
“He’s getting a CAT scan now. No visitors yet.”

 

I swallow down my irritation at her complete lack of concern. It’s certainly not her job to be warm and comforting, but it wouldn’t hurt. She could at least not sound so insufferably bored. “His girlfriend should be here somewhere. Jane?”

 

She looks bored. Still. “You can try the Family Room. Down the hall on the right.”

 

“Thanks,” I say, even though I really don’t mean it.   
  


As I walk down the hall to the Family Room, it strikes me how fucked up this is. I have no idea what Jane looks like. We’ve never even met. And now we’re stuck in this nightmare together. The overhead fluorescents are really bright and everything is off-white; the linoleum floor, the walls, the acoustic-tiled ceiling. I’ve only been in a hospital once before, when I fractured my wrist playing baseball when I was fifteen. I remember my mother fluttering around the room, worried about how much school I might miss while my father—when he finally showed up—clapped me on my shoulder and told me he was proud of me for handling the pain like a man.

 

When I enter the Family Room, finding Jane is made easy on me. There’s one heavy-set middle-aged man sitting on the couch along the left-hand wall and on the couch on the right is, I presume, Jane.   
  
She’s young. I knew that, but knowing it in your head and seeing it in person are two different things. She’s _my_ age. She’s small and really thin everywhere but her chest, which looks too big for the rest of her. She’s got long pale blonde hair pulled up tight in a ponytail. She’s fairly casually dressed, a long knit shirt and leggings, but she’s still wearing stupidly high heels and the diamond studs in her earlobes are huge. I wonder if my father bought them for her. I shake off unhelpful thoughts like that and brace myself to meet her.

 

“Jane?”  
  


She looks up, her wide blue eyes taking me in as her mouth falls open.   
  


“Edward. You look just like your pictures.”

 

It’s an odd, personal comment that I’m not ready for. But I brush it off because we’re not here to get to know each other or anything.  “How is he?”

 

She shrugs one shoulder. Her hands are in her lap and she’s twisting a large gold bracelet around her skinny wrist nervously, but her face is placid and her eyes are dry. “The same, I guess.”

 

“When was the last time you got an update?”

 

“Um, before I called you.”

 

“That was over an hour ago.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah, your phone is off, so I guess you lost track of time.” I sound pissy, and I guess I am.

 

“Oh, fuck!” Jane scrambles for her phone to turn it back on. “Shit! I missed so many texts.”

 

And that’s all she has to say about that. She starts scrolling through her texts and ignores me completely. I stare at her for a second in disbelief before I give up and head back out to the nurse’s station. They must know more by now.

 

That same bitchy nurse from earlier is still there. I want to start pounding on the counters and yelling, but I know that won’t get me anywhere. I need to behave myself.

 

“Excuse me? The doctor has been with my father for over an hour and we haven’t gotten any news. Can you check on him for me?”

 

She barely even looks up from her computer monitor. “The doctor will come to talk to the family soon.”

 

I grind my teeth together. “Yeah, but he hasn’t. Look, I’m his son and I need to know what’s going on. Can you just make a phone call or something?”

 

Her eyes narrow at me, but she reluctantly picks up the phone and punches a few buttons. “Have a seat back in the Family Room. He’ll be down shortly.”

 

“Thanks. I really appreciate all your help.”

 

Her mouth falls open slightly, because she knows damn well she wasn’t the least bit helpful, but I just turn on my heel and stomp back down the hall to Jane.

 

We sit in uncomfortable silence side-by-side on the couch. I feel like I should probably say something, try to talk to her maybe. But I have no idea what to say and she’s on her Blackberry texting non-stop anyway. The soft clack of her long nails on the phone keys is making my spine crawl. Who the fuck could she be texting now anyway? She’s like a freaking fourteen-year-old girl with that thing.

 

It’s another full half-hour before a doctor in green scrubs appears at the door. He’s young, maybe thirty tops, and short. He’s got glasses that are too big for his face and they keep sliding down his nose. When I imagined the doctor that would be taking care of my father’s heart attack, I was imagining someone tall, stately, maybe with white hair, a lab coat and a bow tie. Someone who seemed born to handle things. I was certainly not imagining this overgrown Doogie Howser.

 

The doctor in question pushes his glasses back up his nose with one stubby finger as he peers at the chart in his hand.

 

“The family of Mr… Masen?”

 

I shoot to my feet and cross to him. “Is he okay? What’s going on?”

 

“Are you the next of kin?”

 

His phrasing makes me feel nauseous, but I nod my head. “I’m his son.”

 

“Right,” he says with a tired sigh. “I’m Dr. Stewart. Mr. Masen suffered a major myocardial infarction. In layman’s terms, a heart attack.”

 

“But he’ll be okay, right? You’ve got him set up now?”

 

His eyebrows hike up and his glasses slide back down his nose. “Well, when patients arrive in the condition your father was in—“

 

“Wait. What kind of condition? What do you mean?”

 

Dr. Stewart’s eyes flick to Jane and he looks uncertain. I look at Jane. She looks back at me, blue eyes wide.

 

“I assumed you knew,” Dr. Stewart says. “By the time your father had arrived in the ambulance, his heart had stopped. The paramedics kept him alive with chest compressions. In the E.R., we were able to reestablish a heartbeat and—”

 

I look back at Jane. “His fucking _heart_ stopped? Jesus, I thought he was just having chest pains or something.”

 

“He passed out in the bathroom,” she snaps. “So I called the ambulance.”

 

“You could have told me that part.”

 

Jane just shrugs. “Sorry. I didn’t think it mattered.”

 

“Well, clearly it _does_.”

 

Her jaw tenses as she glares at me, but she doesn’t say anything. It’s official—I hate Jane. But that’s just wasted energy right now, so I take a deep breath and focus on Dr. Stewart.

 

“So you got his heart started again. That’s good, right?”

 

Dr. Stewart looks back at his chart and scowls. It’s like he’s just reading it for the first time, which doesn’t instill a lot of confidence. “It took us a long time to get him stabilized enough to perform the tests.”

 

I feel my skin prickle all over. None of this sounds at all good. The next few minutes are a blur. I try really hard to remember everything he says, because it’s all important, but it’s coming at me so fast and I’m so freaked out. All I can do is nod and tell him I understand. He shows me an x-ray of my father’s chest and points out gray blobs that are supposed to be worse than some other gray blobs that look exactly the same to me. He talks about drugs and treatments and monitors. He talks about statistics and possible outcomes. I can’t tell which ones he thinks _will_ happen and which ones are just things that _might_ happen. I feel completely overwhelmed and Jane is no help. She just hovers slightly behind me and stays completely silent for the whole thing.

 

“Do you have any questions?” Dr. Stewart finally asks at the end.

 

“What happens next?”

 

“We try to keep him stable and we wait to see how well his heart heals.”

 

I let out a ragged breath and drag my hand over my face. “Just tell me honestly. How bad is this?”

 

Dr. Stewart pauses for a minute before he answers me. “I’ll be frank. Only about thirty percent of patients who present with this level of damage to the heart recover from the incident.”

 

The words hit me like a freight train.

 

 _Thirty percent_.

 

The odds are two to one that he’s going to die.

 

Dr. Stewart is talking again, telling us that he’ll give us an update as soon as there’s anything new to tell. I can only nod dumbly. Then he’s gone and it’s just me and Jane.

 

“Shit,” she breathes. “This sucks.”

 

_This sucks._

 

Well, yes Jane, yes, it does suck.

 

I’m not looking at her, but I can sense her digging around in her bag and a second later, she’s produced a Kleenex and she starts to sniffle into it just loud enough to be noticed. I’m sure I’m supposed to comfort her or something, but I just can’t—not when I’m so close to falling apart myself.

 

“I need to call Mom,” I mutter.

 

“Elizabeth?” Jane leaves off her elegant weeping, her voice suddenly sharp. “You’re calling _Elizabeth_?”

 

“Yeah, I’m calling his _wife_.”

 

“ _Ex_ -wife.”

_It’s still more than you’ll ever be to him._

 

The words are right there on the tip of my tongue, and I want to say them so badly—to illustrate to this stupid girl how insignificant and fleeting her role here really is. But this isn’t the time or place. I’ll cause all kinds of unnecessary drama in the middle of this nightmare if I say something like that. So I say nothing—I just turn and leave the lounge to find a quiet corner.

 

My mother’s phone rings and rings. It’s just about to go to voicemail when she answers, her voice grainy. “Hello?”

 

“Mom, it’s Edward… It’s Dad. He’s in the hospital.”

 

I’m greeted with a long silence, broken only by the sound of her breathing. Finally, I prompt her. “Are you there? Did you hear me? He’s had a heart attack. The doctor says it’s really bad.”

 

She pulls in a long breath that sounds like static on the phone and I’m just starting to wonder if she’s crying when she finally says something. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

 

She’s _not_ crying. She doesn’t even sound upset. She sounds regretful and detached, like I’m telling her about some celebrity who’s died, not like it has anything to do with her.

 

“Mom, I’m not sure if he’s going to make it. The doctor said the odds are bad.”

 

“I’m sorry you have to deal with this, Edward,” she says, still detached, still not remotely upset.

 

“Things are a mess here and there’s nobody else. You know he doesn’t have any family. Mom, can you come? I thought you’d _want_ to be here.”

 

She sighs again, long and slightly pained. “I can’t do that, Edward. I just can’t.”

 

My exhaustion and fear morphs to anger like lightning. “Can’t or won’t? I mean, I know he’s not your husband anymore, but he _was_. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Don’t you care even a little?”

 

“He’s a human being. Of course I care. But I just can’t have that man in my life again. He’s toxic for me. I know this must be hard for you, but you have no idea what you’re asking. I just can’t get involved. I can’t be dragged back into his life. I’m sorry.”

 

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head, not believing I’m even hearing this. Stupidly, I imagined that the minute she heard the news, she’d be on her way, willing to forget all the anger and animosity so we could reunite as a family in the face of this crisis. Clearly I over-estimated her. Again. “I’m sorry, too. Look, I have to go.”

 

“Take care of yourself, Edward.”

 

“Yeah, you too.” _You’re really good at that_.

  
I hang up and let my head fall against the wall, oblivious to the flow of nurses and visitors behind me. She won’t come. Even though he might be dying, she won’t come. When did they become these people? When did this ocean of resentment and anger develop between them? Was it always there and I just missed it? Once again, I feel like my whole life was a lie and the two people I was closest to are strangers now—to each other and to me.

 

I think about Jane waiting back down the hall in the Family Room. I think about Jasper, throwing himself headlong into his new life with Alice. I think about my mother, washing all of this away with a bottle or two of white wine.

 

I’ve never felt so alone in my life.

 

I want Bella. Nothing is any different and nothing is solved, but I don’t give a shit. I just want her, whatever way she’ll be here, however she’ll come. I’ll beg if I have to. I just need her.

 

I don’t wait to think it through or plan out what I’m going to say, I just dial her number.

 

She picks up in the middle of the second ring and she’s breathless. “Edward?” She sounds urgent, frantic. And so, so good. My throat hurts with how much I’ve missed her, even though it was just yesterday that I saw her. It feels like years and miles and oceans ago.

 

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m… um…”

 

“Edward,” she cuts me off, sounding a little desperate, “I need to talk to you. Can we—”

 

I’m sure whatever she’s going to say is important and it means everything, but right now I have only one need and one question for her to answer, so I cut her off before she can go any further.

 

“My dad’s in the hospital. It’s… Bella, it’s really bad.”

 

There’s a pause and I think I hear her draw in a breath. I’m holding mine, too, because if she turns her back on me, I really don’t think I can face it. Not now.

 

When she speaks, her voice is much calmer and it soothes me immediately. “I’ll be right there.”

 

*0*0*

 

I can't sit in there with Jane. I probably shouldn't leave her in there on her own since we're reluctantly in this thing together, but I don't give a shit. I don't want to talk to her or try and buck her up and tell her it will be okay. I feel like I'm dealing with this entirely on my own, so she can, too.

Instead, I slowly pace the white-tiled hallway outside the family room. The elevators and the nurse's station are at one end, and the bitchy nurse is still there, so I turn around before I get to her on each circuit. The hallway turns to the left at the other end so that's where I turn back each time.

Back and forth, back and forth.

Past unmarked pale wood doors with little slit windows and past laminated signs promoting asthma awareness and free blood pressure screenings. Every overhead page clangs down my spine like an alarm and I try not to drive myself crazy, parsing them apart to see if any are about my dad. Phones ring in the distance, things ping and buzz, voices filter in and fade away. I just walk, watching my dark high-tops against the white floor.

I can't think too far into the future. Every time I do, I picture funerals and tears and a whole lot of stuff that I can't begin to deal with, so I just stay focused on each moment I'm in. Nothing exists beyond right now.

At the far end of the hall, I turn to make my circuit back towards the nurses’ station and when I look up, the elevator doors are just sliding closed behind Bella. She just stands there for a second, looking at me looking at her. Then, before I can even move, she's heading towards me, her mouth set in a grim line, eyebrows furrowed together.

She stops right in front of me and looks up at my face. Then she reaches up with both hands, resting each along my jaw, as her fingertips brush my neck. My eyes close on their own at the contact and I exhale, finally feeling a tiny bit of weight lift of my chest.

"Edward."

I open my eyes to look at her again and now I notice how tired she looks, how pale her skin is and how dark the circles are under her pink-edged eyes.

"Edward," she starts again. "I need to tell you—"

I raise a hand to stop her, suddenly so weary I feel like I can barely keep standing up. "Wait. I know. I know we need to talk and we have so much stuff to deal with. But right now, can we just… not? Can you just be here?"

She looks at me for another moment with her dark eyes that are so much older than she is. Then she reaches up on tiptoe to slide her arms around my shoulders. She's pulling me in and my arms circle her ribs, crushing her against me. She buries her face in my neck and inhales.

"I'm here," she murmurs. Then she presses her lips against the side of my neck and it makes me want to cry. My grip on her tightens. My eyes squeeze shut.

"Don't go."

"I won't go," she whispers. "I'm right here."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	10. Her Arms

**  
**

"So we'll talk next week and see if we can reschedule. Okay… I _know_ … it's a pain. Yeah…Thanks. We'll talk soon." Jane makes a kissy noise into her phone before ending the call.

I feel Bella's hand tighten on mine and I look over at her. Her knee is bouncing up and down like crazy and she's glaring daggers at Jane, who is completely oblivious. We've been sitting in the Family Lounge for less than an hour and the animosity radiating from Bella has increased exponentially with every word Jane has said. I don't blame her. Listening to Jane reschedule her life around the inconvenience of my father's massive heart attack is making me want to commit murder myself.

Thankfully I'm saved from committing homicide by the sudden reappearance of Dr. Stewart in the door. I scramble to my feet, shaking my head so I can clear the fog and focus. I'm so fucking tired. Bella is right behind me and as soon as I reach Dr. Stewart, I feel her fingers wind through with mine. I grip her hand tightly, focusing on that to hold myself together. Jane holds up a finger to shush us as she finishes typing out a text before pulling herself to her feet to join us.

"What's going on?" I ask the doctor. "How is he doing?"

"I'm afraid I don't really have anything new to tell you,” he replies. “His condition is the same. If you want to go and get some sleep, the nurses will be happy to call you if there's any change in his situation."

"I'm not leaving," I say immediately.

"It's entirely your choice, of course."

"I won't be able to sleep anyway."

Bella squeezes my hand before she steps forward to talk to Dr Stewart herself. "Is he intubated?"

Dr. Stewart looks startled but nods. "Yes, he is."

Bella launches into a litany of questions regarding which drugs have been administered and what the readings of various tests were. She listens intently to every answer, nodding slightly, taking it all in. She's asking all the things I probably should have asked and didn't even think to. I'm torn between feeling like a failure and feeling abjectly grateful that she's here to do it.

When Dr. Stewart has finished reciting my father's entire chart to her, Bella finally seems satisfied. I look at her, but she just shrugs. "When I was in high school, this happened to my dad's best friend."

I squeeze her fingers. "Thank you."

She smiles. It's small and tired, but it's there.

Dr. Stewart leaves and the three of us stand in awkward silence for a minute.

Then Jane yawns loudly.

I roll my eyes, but take the cue. "Jane, why don't you go home and get some sleep? You heard what he said. It's just about waiting now."

"Are you sure?" she protests weakly.

"Yeah, I'm sure. I'm not leaving and there's no point in both of us staying."

"Well, if it's _really_ okay…"

I insist that it is a few more times before she gratefully caves in and leaves. As soon as she's out of the Family Lounge, Bella lets out an exasperated groan.

"Jesus Christ," she mutters.

In spite of everything, I chuckle. "Yeah, I know."

She sighs and goes back into the room, tugging me after her. The other guy that was in here left hours ago, so now it's just us. My father’s business partner, Marcus, came by briefly earlier in the night, expressing his concern and offering to help with anything we needed. But he looked so awkward and uncomfortable that I took pity on him, insisting that we had everything fully in hand, which is a lie, and that we’d call him with any news. He looked grateful relieved to be let off the hook.

Bella sinks down on the empty couch and I sit next to her.

"Are you sure you want to stay?" she asks.

"It's just too soon. Maybe if he's better in a little while I'll go, but not yet." I swallow hard and force the next words out. "You don't need to stay—"

Bella's hand shoots up until her fingers are on my lips. "Hey, I said I'd stay. I'm staying."

I smile weakly against her fingertips. She slides them back, over my cheek and into my hair, her nails scraping my scalp a little. I close my eyes and moan.

"You look exhausted," she says gently.

"Mmmhmm."

"C'mon." She tugs on my arm and I open my eyes heavily to look at her. She pats her lap. "It's one in the morning. Stretch out and close your eyes for a few minutes. You won't miss anything. I promise."

"No, I can't…"

Bella rolls her eyes at me. "Don't be Jane with the fake protesting. Just put your head down and rest. You need it, Edward."

And she's right. God, do I need it. I need to rest, and I need Bella. I need her warmth and her hands and her reassuring presence. So I let her tug me down until I'm stretched out on the sofa with my head in her lap. Her fingers immediately sink into my hair and I sigh, feeling the tense air leave every last corner of my body.

She's warm and soft and smells good. Her fingertips make a slow, steady circuit through my hair—from my temple, up and over my ear, and down the back of my head—over and over. It feels so good, so easy and sweet and comforting. I curl my arm around her knees, hugging her close. She reaches her free hand down and settles it over mine where it's resting on her thigh. Nothing feels like this and nothing ever will. Ten minutes ago, peace like this seemed impossible, but I find it under her hands. My last fleeting thought is that I need to do whatever it takes to never, ever lose this—to never lose her.

*0*0*

"Edward."

I feel like I’ve sunk down to the bottom of the ocean. The air around me feels as heavy as the sea as I fight my way up to the surface of consciousness.

"Edward."

Warm fingers slide down my face and I inhale sharply. I smell antiseptic and burned coffee. The events of the last day shake into place in my head and I startle awake fully.

"Shhh." Bella's hand squeezes my shoulder. "Dr. Stewart is here."

I sit bolt upright and blink a few times to pull him into focus.

"Sorry to wake you, Mr. Masen," he says, blinking back at me through his smudgy glasses.

"It's fine. Is he alright?"

"I'm going off shift and I wanted to stop in and update you before I left. His situation is still more or less unchanged, but he's stable, so that, in itself, is positive. If you wanted to go home and get a few hours sleep, I think it would be safe to do so. They'll do another x-ray in the morning, so that's probably the earliest you'll learn anything new."

I look at Bella, desperate for someone to help me make these decisions, because I'm a mess. "What do you think?"

"I think we should go,” she says, slowly. “We'll come back first thing tomorrow."

I nod. "Okay. That's what we'll do. Thanks, Dr. Stewart."

He gives me a tense little smile and then he's gone. Bella and I don't say anything else to each other, we just shuffle to the elevators and out of the hospital. Outside, under the entrance awning, I pause and stretch, looking around. It's still dark outside, although where we are is lit up as bright as day with fluorescent lights. It must be sometime in the very early morning.

I cast a quick glance at Bella, wondering what happens now. For the last few hours in the hospital we were sort of in suspended animation, the reality of her and my situation temporarily forgotten. Now we're back in the real world for the moment and I'm wondering what she'll do. Will she stay with me or go home? I really want her to stay, but I feel like I'm just asking, asking, asking.

"Where's your car?" she asks, startling me. "I'll just leave mine here since we're coming back so soon."

I'm so relieved I could kiss her, but that doesn't seem appropriate quite yet, so I reach for her hand instead. She weaves her fingers through mine and squeezes. I'm not going to question anything just yet. It's all still out there, hovering over our heads, but it'll have to stay there for now. I need us to be like this for just a little longer until I'm strong enough to face the future, whatever it holds.

Back at my place, I unlock the door and step to the side to let her in ahead of me. It's dark and a little stuffy since Jasper's still away with Alice and I haven't been here since early the morning before. I stuff my hands in my pockets, wondering how I should handle this. Are we sleeping? Or is this when we talk? But Bella once again takes the decision away from me. She pulls one of my hands free and tugs me after her down the hall to my room. Inside, she drops her bag and her coat by the door and reaches up to pull her hair out of its ponytail.

She looks at me for a minute, tired and apprehensive. Then she says softly, "Let's just get some sleep while we can."

I just nod and start stripping down to my boxers and t-shirt. Bella helps herself to a t-shirt from my drawer. Despite the fact that we're both mostly undressed in my bedroom, the site of countless scenes of sexual abandon, there's not a flicker of that present right now. Bella pulls back the blanket and crawls in, settling down on what I've come to think of as her side. She looks up at me and holds out her hand. I take it, grateful—so very grateful—that she's here with me and staying. I settle into my favorite spot on earth, right behind her, my cheek resting against her hair, her back tucked into my front with my arm around her waist. Her hand settles on top of mine and squeezes. I wrap my arm even more tightly around her, hoping that I never have to let her go.

*0*0*

I wake up again as soon as the sky begins to lighten. I'm still so exhausted, but it's like my brain is keeping track of reality even when I'm asleep and wants to make sure I don't miss a minute of the misery.

What I'm faced with when I first open my eyes is not at all miserable though. Bella's back in my bed, tangled around me. She's turned during her sleep so that she's facing me. One of my legs has wormed its way between hers and I can feel the heat of her bare thighs on either side of mine. My shirt has twisted around her body and ridden up to expose her stomach. My forearm is pressed against her bare skin. I shift so I can open my hand and lay my palm against her back.

She makes a soft, breathy moaning sound, turning her face up under my chin and moving closer. Her hand is on my hip and then it runs up my side to my shoulder. I close my eyes and just feel. She was asleep a second ago, but I don’t think she is anymore. I'm sure of it when I feel her kiss the underside of my jaw. My body responds, whether it should or not. And then, she responds to my body, pressing her hips against my growing erection. My thigh slides up until it hits the apex of hers. She moans again, the sound more intentional this time.

Fuck, this is all wrong. We shouldn't; nothing's been said or fixed or dealt with yet. This might make everything so much worse later. And the timing absolutely sucks. But right now, I really don't care. She's warm and soft with sleep, and I'm tired and hard and desperate for her. She starts to grind against me and I grind back.

I groan and give up, rolling her until she's under me. She gasps and her legs fall open. One shift of my weight and I'm between them, thrusting against her in earnest now. I kiss the side of her neck and the slope of her shoulder. Her hands fist into my shirt and her back arches up off the bed.

"Bella," I sigh into her hair. "We… I can't… I need…" I can't finish my fucking sentence. We should stop, but I don't want to. If I say anything else, we'll stop. Am I asking her to stop us because I can't? Or am I asking for permission to just keep going?

"Please…" she moans, her hands sliding up into my hair.

I raise my head to look at her, finally. Her eyes are still heavy with sleep and her cheeks are flushed, but she's awake and aware. She wants this, too… she wants me. I don't know whether it’s lust or comfort or some brand new thing, but I don't want to think anymore. I just want to feel. So I don't say anything else, I just reach for a condom.

It's slow and deep. I just rock against her, pushing in hard and steady. We're too tired and strung out for sexual gymnastics. That's not what this is about anyway. She never lets me go, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and her calves around my hips, holding me to her until I start to shake and groan.

"I'm almost there," I whisper.

"Do it," she says, kissing the side of my neck.

"Are you…"

"No, just you. Just you this time."

I kiss her cheek, my last coherent action. I come hard, gripping her hips as I drive into her. She holds on tight as I fracture over her, gasping . She pulls my head onto her chest, stroking my sweaty hair off my face as I slowly recover.

A long time later, she speaks. "God, we always get this backwards, don't we?"

"What do you mean?" I ask, not raising my head.

"This. We have so much to talk about, but instead, we had sex."

"Sorry," I say, even though I'm not really. "Are you upset about that?"

Her hands dig into my hair and tug, making me moan. "No."

"Good."

"So, can I talk now?"

I smile against her chest and press a kiss to her breastbone. "You can always talk."

She nudges me. "You know what I mean. I have a lot of stuff that I need to say. Do you feel like you can do this now?"

I close my eyes, dreading this but knowing it needs to be done, so I nod. She keeps stroking my hair, letting her fingertips run down over my shoulders on each pass. She's quiet for a while, for so long that I'm wondering if she's changed her mind about saying anything.

Then she takes a deep breath. I can feel it fill her chest under my cheek. "I think I love you," she says quietly. “No, that’s not right. I _know_ I do.”

I blink.

I'm startled, stunned, and surprisingly I'm still  _really_  angry. I didn't realize I was until she told me the very thing I hoped to hear and instead of feeling happy, all I feel is hurt. Still.

"You have a funny way of showing it." Then I flinch and close my eyes. So wrong. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't—"

"No," Bella cuts me off. She gives me a nudge and I sigh, sliding off her. She immediately rolls to her side to face me, scooting down until her face is level with mine. She fumbles down until she finds one of my hands and brings it up to hold with both of hers, between us. "I deserved that," she starts again, looking me straight in the eye. "I'm so sorry for how badly I handled everything. I told you how I feel so I can explain why."

I scowl in confusion. She gives me a little half-smile and shakes her head against the pillow.

"Edward, you… _terrify_  me."

"Excuse me? Terrify?"

Bella raises my hand and kisses my knuckles. "Yes, terrify. You’re thrilling and comforting and sweet and exciting and it's all so terrifying. Can I explain?"

I nod. "You'd better."

She looks down at our joined hands and chews her bottom lip for a minute, considering what she wants to say. “You know how serious I am about school, right?"

"Of course I do."

She nods once, eyes still down. "I haven't… been with anybody since undergrad. I broke up with my last boyfriend at the start of my senior year and…"

"Nobody since then?"

"Nobody. I knew I wanted to do this… grad school, my PhD. And I knew it wouldn't be easy. I didn't want any distractions. Then when I met you that first night, and you were just looking to get lucky—"

"It's more than that now," I protest.

She glances up at me with a smile. "I know. Well… anyway. I don't make a habit out of that. Hooking up with random guys."

I close my eyes and swallow, remembering all those horrible things I shouted at her on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. "I know that. You've never been like that. I'm sorry about what I said the other day. I didn't mean it."

"We were both upset and we both said things we didn't mean. Let's just forget that part, okay?"

I want to. We're curled together naked and warm and touching and she's saying she loves me. I want to forget it all and start over from this moment. But one thing keeps nagging at me. I keep seeing her face when she looked up to find me standing behind her in the restaurant. The shame on it.

I don't want to say it, but I have to. "You're ashamed of me, Bella. I can't forget that part."

Her eyes go wide and her hands tighten on mine. "No! No, I'm not. I swear it."

I close my eyes so I don't have to see her earnest, desperate face. "I saw the way you looked—when you realized I was there. You were ashamed."

"Not of you. I was ashamed of  _me_. The second I saw you there and saw the way you were looking at me, I knew how I'd made you feel—and I felt so terrible. It's the worst thing I've ever done."

Her voice is getting teary and I can't stand it—I need to comfort her. I raise my free hand to cup her face and run my fingers back into her hair. "But you didn't want me to meet your dad. I mean, I get it. There's not much about me to impress somebody like your dad—or your friends. I'm sure everybody would have asked you why you were wasting your time on me. "

"Stop talking about yourself like that."

"It's true. You've got your life together. You know what you're doing. I'm totally fucking lost."

Bella closes her eyes and shakes her head in frustration. "That stuff is just superficial. The circumstances of your life don't define who you are. You’re more than a job and a plan, Edward."

"So why didn't you want me to meet him?"

When she answers, her voice is a little sharper and she arches that eyebrow at me. "I'll remind you that you didn't want to meet him at first, either. You should have seen your face when I mentioned he was coming. You totally panicked."

I wince because she’s right. I was a total coward. "Okay. Point taken. I didn't. It freaked me out and I was scared. But it turns out, he was fine."

She smiles and runs her fingertips over my knuckles one at a time. "I think he'd like you if he met you for real."

I smile, too. "We'll give that a try sometime. Now answer the question. Why did you hide me?"

She sighs, her playfulness evaporating. "I just didn't know what to say about you. I knew if he met you, he'd ask questions about us, and nothing I could say about what we were doing sounded good. And that just made me feel worse. Because then I had to face that I really wasn’t okay with what we were doing or I wouldn’t feel the need to hide it.” Bella stops and shakes her head sadly.

"Bella—" I want to tell her once again that this is more than casual sex and it has been almost from the start, but she cuts me off.

"Do you remember that night you came to the bar with Alice and Jasper when I was working?"

I pause to think about where she's going with this. "Yeah, I remember."

"That night, when I saw you with that girl—"

"I didn't go home with her. I didn't even want to talk to her. She was just some friend of Alice's."

"That's not even the point. It wasn't about you, it was about  _me_. When I saw you with her, I was so…  _hurt_  and furious and _insanely_ jealous."

"Hey—"

"No, I know. It wasn't anything. But the way it made me  _feel_ … that's when I realized I was in trouble. That I cared about you _way_ more than I should. And I was terrified. I was in too deep and I didn’t know what to do."

 She closes her eyes and shakes her head. I squeeze her fingers to encourage her to keep going.

“What were you so afraid of?” I ask her.

She takes a deep breath and when she starts talking again, her voice is low and uncertain.

"I wasn't expecting you. This was supposed to be just fun. Everything is always so serious with me. I've been so mature and responsible my whole life. Just once, I thought I would do one thing that was crazy and irresponsible and easy. That’s not _me_ , you know? I don’t do casual sex. But I figured, why not? You didn’t want anything, so maybe I could try the whole not-wanting-anything, too. It seemed perfect, since I was so focused on school. I should have known better. I have no idea how to do casual, because I fell for you so hard. I fell for the guy who doesn’t do relationships. Stupid, stupid me."

I cup her chin with my fingers and turn her face up to me. "Hey, maybe it’s true that I wasn’t exactly looking for a relationship...” She gives me her most judgmental face and I immediately backtrack. “Okay, fine. A relationship was pretty much the last thing on earth I wanted. But it doesn’t matter because it happened anyway. We fell for _each other._ That night? Talking to that girl? I kept telling myself I could do it if I wanted to, but I felt so guilty about it. That’s when I realized that it felt wrong because it _was_ wrong. She wasn’t you.”

She smiles at me, but it's sad, too. "I didn't know that. I figured it was just a matter of time before you got bored and walked away." Her voice is soft and so fragile. It kills me. I can feel what I made her feel and it hurts.

"Because I was really shitty about showing you.  _Telling_  you. I'm an idiot. And I suck at this."

"No, you don't," she says softly, rubbing her thumb across my knuckles. "Well, maybe you suck a little bit. No worse than me, though. I knew I was being a coward. Hiding. I just kept my mouth shut and kept pretending everything was fine. I’m sorry."

I smile a little and wrap my arm around her shoulders, pulling her in towards me. She's smiling too, pressing her forehead against my chest. "And I didn’t say anything when I should have because I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was even asking you for. I'll try and do better," I promise her.

"You already have.” She sighs. "Edward, that book… the one you gave me for my birthday?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you mean it—the poems inside—or was it just a pretty book?"

I lean back and look down so I can see her. Whatever I did to make this girl doubt how much she means to me was the stupidest move of my life. I have a lot to make up for. "I meant every word," I tell her. “I’m sorry I gave it to you like that. Obviously, that was not what I intended.”

“It’s okay. I was so mad at you right then. Because of what you said, but also because you made me feel guilty for what I’d done to you. Then I went home and opened it and… _Jesus_. I fell apart.”

“Your dad must hate me,” I murmur.

She chuckles. “He kind of wanted to kill you at first. But after that, I was so upset about what I’d done that he backed off. He’d like to give it another go someday.”

“I would, too. I ruined your birthday.”

“I had plenty to do with that myself.”

I remember that night, Jasper telling me that Alice was with Bella picking up the pieces. Guilt cuts right through me. “Still, that was… The book was supposed to be—well, it was my way of telling you how I felt. Because, you know, I suck at actually using words.”

She sniffs and smiles. “You’re doing okay at it right now.”

I swallow and brace myself. I'm still scared but it's getting easier. With Bella with me, loving me, I feel myself expanding. I am capable of so much more than I thought. Including this.

I lean in and kiss her cheek, and then I linger there, my face right next to hers. "I love you," I whisper.

Her breath catches and she turns her face to press her lips against mine.

“I love you, too,” she murmurs, kissing me again.

I wrap my arms around her and she wraps hers around me. I close my eyes and just breathe her in—Bella beside me, all around me, in my life and in every corner of me. We hold each other. Close and tight. And in love.

I am so lost in her. Lost, and I hope I’m never found again.

 

*0*0*

 

As much as I want to forget the world and sink into the bed with Bella, real life—real, _miserable_ life—still exists. We have to get back to the hospital. I already feel guilty for the minutes we stole away for ourselves this morning, even if it was the most important conversation I’d ever have.

 

We crawl out of bed and into the shower together to save time, but also because I can’t bear for her to be too far away from me yet. The fear and anxiety is still hovering all around us, but for just this little bit of time, I’m happy. We touch and smile and lean into each other. I kiss her shoulder, the back of her neck, her fingertips. I’d like to do more, but now is not the time nor the place.

 

As we rinse off, we talk more, although it’s not as heavy and intense as in the bedroom earlier. It’s odd—now that we’ve stepped over this line, asking questions and telling secrets is so much easier. She loves me. I love her. She’s not going anywhere. I feel so confident in this knowledge. It makes me feel free. I can ask her what she’s feeling, I can tell her what I’m thinking, and we’ll just deal with it. Get through it. And on the other side, she’ll still love me, I’ll still love her.

 

Jasper was right—it really is that easy. It seems like the easiest thing in the world. How did I make it so hard?

 

I ask her about Riley and she just sighs and laughs, tipping her head back to let the water sluice through her hair. I reach out and settle my hands on her hips.

 

“Oh, he’s just some boy. Why do you care?”

 

“He’s a boy that wants my girl. I care.”

 

“New rule,” she says, opening her eyes to look at me. “We forget everything we said outside the restaurant except one thing. Remember this one. I told you the truth about Riley. He’s got a thing for me. I _don’t_ have one for him. End of story.”

 

I grin. “Because you have a thing for _me_.”

 

She rolls her eyes. “Now I know you’re feeling better. You’re getting cocky again.”

 

I pull her up flush against me so I can hug her, all warm limbs and slippery wet skin, and so she can feel for herself. “I’ll say.”

 

She chuckles and pushes back. “No time for that.”

 

I sigh. “I know.” The playfulness evaporates like the shower steam. I think about my father lying intubated in a hospital bed and my stomach bottoms out. For all that I’ve faced and dealt with regarding Bella, there’s so much about my father that I haven’t even let myself think about yet. And I need to.

 

Bella seems to sense the turn of my thoughts and puts her hand on my cheek.   
  


“Hey, it’ll be okay.”

 

I nod tightly. She continues, “Whatever happens, I’ll be right next to you, okay?”

 

Hearing her say that makes me almost breathless with gratitude. I swallow around the lump in my throat so I can speak, even though my throat is hoarse. “Thank you for coming when I called, even though things were awful right then.”

 

“I wanted to. I called you.”

 

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer. I was just mad. I didn’t want to talk to you until I had myself under control. I was going to go see you last night as soon as I got off work, but then Jane called about my dad.”

 

She smiles and presses a little kiss to the edge of my jaw. “It’s okay. After you gave me a book like that, I wasn’t going to let you run away. I’d have kept hunting you down until you talked to me again.”

 

“Nice to know literature has such an effect on you. I’ll keep that one in mind.”

 

“You’re the one that has an effect on me. Just you.”

 

She hugs me under the shower spray until the water goes cold. It gives me the strength I need to keep going and face what waits for me at the hospital.

 

 


	11. Her Love

**  
**

 

We check in with the nurses’ station when we get back to the hospital. The nurse pages the doctor on call to come give us an update. It’s not Dr. Stewart today; he’s off. This time, it’s Dr. Patil—he’s not much older than Dr. Stewart, but even though he’s just getting up to speed on my dad’s case, he seems a little more on top of things than Stewart was.

 

He tells us that my father’s condition remains unchanged from last night. Dad’s still intubated, and his vitals are holding steady. He’s not improving, but also not getting worse, so that’s good news, I suppose. They’re in the middle of doing more tests, but Dr. Patil tells me that as soon as they’re done, I can finally go in and see him. My father won’t be awake, but still, I guess I should.

 

Jane is nowhere to be seen. Once we finish up with Dr. Patil, I call her. She sounds half-asleep when she answers. I get her up to speed and try to relate every detail the doctor told me, even though I get the sense that she doesn’t really care about them.

 

I suppress an eye-roll. “Look, they’re running some tests now, but the doctor said we can see him when they’re done.”

 

“So he’s awake?” she asks.

 

“Well, no, but you still want to see him.” I pause for emphasis.  “Right?”

 

She sighs wearily. “I better get dressed then.”

 

I want to tell her not to bother, but I refrain. “See you soon.”

  
I end the call and huff in disgust.   
  


“She’s really awful,” Bella says.

 

I shake my head. “It’s unbelievable. I don’t think she really gives a shit about him. Whatever. It’s his life.”

 

Bella leans her cheek against my shoulder briefly, just a little pressure, to let me know she’s there. “Let’s get some coffee real quick, before they finish up, okay?”

 

When we come back from the cafeteria, the nurse says we can go see him. There’s still no sign of Jane, but that’s fine. I don’t want her in there with me anyway.

 

“You want to go in alone?” she asks.

 

“No!” I say in alarm, reaching out for her hand. “I mean, I’d really much rather have you there with me.”

 

She smiles. “Of course. Let’s go, then.”

 

We head down the hall to 514. There’s a nurse just inside, writing something on his chart as we open the door.

 

She smiles at us, but it’s impersonal. “Ten minutes.”

 

I nod grimly. I don’t think I can handle any more than that anyway. The nurse puts the chart back in its place and leaves. I adjust my hand around Bella’s and move forward into the room. The curtain around his bed is half-pulled, so I can’t see his face until I reach the foot of the bed. The room is silent except for the electronic hum and blip of the monitors.

 

He looks so small. I recognize his hair right away; it’s the distinctive feature we share. But the rest might as well be a stranger. His skin is nearly grey, so pale and ashen. All the flesh on his face seems shrunken and the skin is hanging off the bones. His cheekbones are too sharp, with deep hollows underneath, and his eyes are shadowed. Logically, I know he’s as tall as he ever was but he doesn’t look it. He looks so thin under the crummy blue hospital blanket. All he’s wearing is a flimsy white hospital gown. It feels so odd to see him this underdressed that I almost want to look away, like he’s naked or something.

 

I remember the last time I saw him, just last week when he came to the bookstore. It seems impossible that this is the same person. Then again, I remember noticing that he looked older and tired that day. Was he already sick? Was his weak heart already beginning to give out on him?

 

The rest of that day floods back in a rush. All the things I said. Telling him to leave and not come back. Suddenly I’m shaking and I feel like I might throw up.

 

 _Jesus Christ_.

 

He’s going to die—I can tell it just by looking at him.

 

And that was the last thing I ever said to him. I told him to leave.

 

“Hey, are you okay?” I can hear Bella’s soft voice right next to me. I can feel her hand on the side of my neck. But I can’t say anything and I can’t look away from the shell of my father lying in that bed.

 

“Edward,” she tries again when I don’t answer. All I can do is shake my head. My mouth floods with saliva and I swallow, willing myself not to vomit. My heart is racing. I feel so cold. “Edward, look at me.” Bella steps in front of me, her hands on either side of my face, forcing my head down, making me look at her. I try to focus on her, just her.

 

“He’s dying,” I whisper.

 

“You don’t know that. He’s holding his own right now. Just breathe, Edward.”

 

I shake my head. “This is so fucked up. All the shit we said to each other and I can’t fix it. Bella, _how am I going to fix it_?”

 

“Shhhh. Hey, it’s okay. One thing at a time. You can’t go there now. Not now. Right now we’re just going to focus on the medical part, on his recovery. Okay? That’s all we’re going to think about, right?”

 

I keep my eyes on hers. She’s still holding my face and she’s nodding reassuringly at me. I listen to her low, even voice, her steady words. Yes, I can do this. Just focus on the medical. Put the rest off till later. I’m nodding too, letting her calm me down. I close my eyes and inhale.

 

“Maybe we’ll come back in this afternoon,” she says, sliding her hands off my face, down my arms to grasp my hands. I nod, feeling a little embarrassed that I melted down like that the second I walked into the room.

 

Bella doesn’t seem to care. She’s just gripping my hands and staring into my eyes.

 

I let her pull me back towards the door. I look back one more time at my dad, still and quiet under a nest of tubes and machines.

 

It already feels like he’s gone.

 

When we’re back in the quiet of the Family Room a few minutes later, I finally take a deep breath. I lean forward with my elbows on my knees, and let my head fall forward, keeping my eyes closed as I just focus on not freaking out. Bella is next to me, her leg pressed along the length of mine, one arm draped across my back. She leans in and I feel her kiss my shoulder.

 

“You want to talk about what happened in there?”

 

I don’t, but I do anyway. Bella always seems to have that effect on me, dragging words out of me that I’d just as soon swallow down.

 

“He came to see me at the bookstore the other day.”

 

“He did? Is this since the phone call? That night when I was over and he called?”

 

I nod tightly. “You were with your dad so I hadn’t told you about it yet.”

 

“I’m sorry,” she says, in that regretful tone of voice from this morning.

 

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

  
“No, just…I’m sure it was upsetting for you and I wasn’t there. I’m sorry.”

 

I shrug. There’s really no point in rehashing all of that now. “It doesn’t matter now.”

 

“So what happened?”

 

“More of the same, only a little more final. I told him to leave and not to come back until he was okay with me and my life. And he left. That was it. The last thing I said to him.”

 

“You don’t know that.”

 

“If he… if this goes badly, that’s it. That’s how we left it. How do I fix that?”

 

“First, don’t focus on that outcome. There’s no point in torturing yourself like that unnecessarily, Edward.” She pauses for a minute, rubbing my back, before she adds, “Second, maybe you won’t be able to.”

 

“What?”

 

“Maybe you won’t be able to fix it. Not everything gets fixed. Life is complicated and messy. Sometimes all you can do is take what you’ve got and make the best out of it.”

 

I think about what she’s said for a long time. I think about this guilt, this weight in my chest, and I imagine never having the chance to fix it and make it go away. It’s not like I was _planning_ on fixing it before, but I thought I had time. Maybe I don’t. Time is never guaranteed. If we don’t fix this, I don’t know how I’ll deal with it, but Bella’s right. Life is wildly imperfect. There’s every possibility that I’ll have to. And if that happens, I’ll just deal. That’s what people do.

 

*0*0*

 

Jane shows up an hour later and spends ten minutes in my father’s room before flopping back down on the couch in the Family Room so she can get back to her texting.

 

At Bella’s urging, I call Jasper and fill him in on the situation. I told Bella all about our fight, but she insists that he’d want to know. She’s right, of course. The minute I tell him what happened, the anger is forgotten and he wants to come home, but I tell him to stay put with Alice’s cousin in Bellingham. There’s nothing he could do here anyway. He sounds relieved to hear that Bella is with me. I feel like I can hear everything he’s not saying: _She’s good for you._

 

 _I know it_ is what I don’t say back.

 

In the afternoon, Bella and I go back in to see my father. I do better this time, not that there’s not much to do or say. He’s still just a body breathing through machines, wired to a million monitors.

 

But I don’t freak out. I sit by the bed, clinging onto Bella’s hand, telling him about what the doctors have said. I feel silly, like I’m speaking to a stuffed animal or something. I wonder if I should talk about more personal things, like us. But I can’t. The best I can do is to recite a litany of test results and statistics to him and try to sound reassuring.

 

It’ll have to do.

 

When we go back to the Family Room, I’m surprised to find Carlisle and Esme sitting there with Jane. I panic, realizing that I haven’t called to update them at all.

 

“Carlisle, I’m so sorry. I should have called to let you know what was going on—“

 

Carlisle raises his hand to stop me. “Nonsense. You’ve got your hands full here. Don’t worry about calling us. We thought we’d just come by quickly and see how you’re holding up.”

 

Their kindness leaves me nearly speechless. My own mother refused to come, but my _boss_ is here. Except that Carlisle has always been more than a boss to me, and I know it. If I had any doubt, this proves it.

 

“Thank you both. I really appreciate it.”

 

Esme is on her feet, crossing to me, gripping me by the shoulders. “Now, how are you really? Do you need anything? Can I bring some food? Coffee? Anything?”

 

I smile at her. “Really, we’re holding up just fine on that crap from the cafeteria.”

  
“Are you sure?”

 

“Positive. Hopefully we won’t even be here much longer, right?” I’m trying to sound cheerful, but Esme’s tight smile and the tiny glance I see her and Bella exchange let me know that I failed.

 

“Of course not,” Carlisle says, all forced brightness.

 

“I’ll call you as soon as I know when I’ll be back in,” I tell him.

 

“Edward, please. That’s the last thing you need to worry about right now. I’ve got Peter working extra hours and we’ll muddle through. Just do what you need to do.”

 

He claps me firmly on the shoulder and moves so I’m flanked by them, Carlisle and Esme, each holding onto one of my arms, full of pity and support. It’s surreal that they are the ones to be here for me, but at the same time, it feels right, and I’m forever grateful.

 

They only stay another minute or two. Carlisle asks me a few general questions about my dad while Esme and Bella have a small quiet exchange. Then they say their goodbyes, insisting that I call them if I need anything at all.   
  


After they’re gone, I sit down on the couch and pull Bella into my side. I just need a few minutes of her warmth and softness in the middle of this cold, chemical, hospital nightmare. I’m so, so tired and all I want to do is put my head back in her lap and sleep again, but we’re not alone now, so I don’t do it.

 

She reaches up anyway to run her fingers through my hair, like she knows exactly what I need. It’s a tiny moment of peace and serenity that is suddenly, bone-jarringly interrupted by the sound of several alarms going off at once. The overhead intercom crackles to life with a flurry of pages for nurses, doctors and crash carts… all converging on Room 514.

 

All for my father.

 

We’re on our feet and out in the hall in seconds. People in scrubs are hurrying past us and I know exactly where they’re going. His room is only a hundred feet down the hall, and when we get there, one of the nurses throws her arms out to stop us from getting any closer.

 

“That’s my father!” I shout at her.

 

“I know that,” she says, patient, but wasting no time. “But you need to take a seat in the Family Room while the doctors work on him. Someone will come talk to you as soon as we know something.”

 

“But…” I’m about to explode, to start screaming and maybe throwing shit. I’m panicked and this woman is telling me to have a seat and fucking _relax_.

 

“Edward.” It’s Bella, wrapping her hands around my upper arm, tugging me away from the door. “You can’t help. Just let them work. Come on.”

 

She’s probably the only person on earth that can reach me now. I let her pull me back down the hall, past Jane, who’s standing there staring like a deer in headlights, back to the prison of the Family Room to wait.

 

It feels like hours. It may only be twenty minutes. I’m not sure, I’ve lost all perspective. All I know is that one minute I’m sitting on the couch, leaning forward, staring at the floor while Bella runs a soothing hand over my shoulder, and the next, I’m looking up to see Dr. Patil in the doorway, pulling his latex gloves off and looking exhausted.

 

He meets my eyes and I know. I just know.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says.

 

*0*0*

 

In the end, there was too much damage to the heart muscle. That’s what Dr. Patil told me. My dad’s heart stopped again and even with all the drugs and machines at their command, they couldn’t re-start it and he died.

 

I go through the next two days in a fog. Despite my massive freak-out when he was in the hospital, once the worst has actually happened, it’s like I go on auto-pilot. I don’t think about it and I’m not really feeling anything. I’m just pushing through the day, from one thing to the next. I just have to get it done, lay him to rest, and then I can think about it and react. Until then, I have to keep moving.

  
There’s so much to do and I’m clueless. Jane is no help whatsoever, too busy milking her status as the grieving… whatever she is.

 

It’s Bella that gets me through it. Bella calls the funeral home and sets up the appointment. Bella calls Marcus, enlisting him to make the phone calls to Dad’s associates to let everyone know.

 

Bella sits with me at the funeral home meeting while I’m walked through casket options and funeral plots and cremation packages. It’s the most morbid, ghastly thing I can imagine and I only get through it because she’s there to gently give me her opinion at each step.

 

Bella helps me plan the memorial service and she writes up the program for it. She also writes his obituary to submit to the Seattle Times. She’s amazing and my father is so in her debt. And he never even met her. It’s yet another regret that I can’t find the time to think about just yet.

 

We barely sleep, busy with calling people and arranging things. I spend endless hours listening to people I don’t know—my father’s business associates, mostly—tell me over the phone how very sorry they are. They all recite from what’s becoming a very familiar script of grief and sympathy. I eventually perfect my own script, rehearsed platitudes that put them at ease and get me off the phone the fastest.

 

For the two nights after all of the phone calls have been made and the mandatory tasks have been crossed off the list, and we’ve choked down some tasteless takeout food while making a plan for the next few days’ mountain of work, Bella quietly pulls me into bed with her. She wraps herself around me and throws a quilt around our joined bodies. She settles my head on her chest and soothes me with her fingers in my hair until I sleep in spite of myself. In her arms, it all goes away. There’s just her warm body and her breathing and the peace around us. I honestly can’t imagine surviving a minute of this without her.

 

In the end, I decide on a memorial service followed by a private cremation. I have no idea if it’s what my dad wanted. We never talked about it. Jane has no idea either, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. She barely knew him, really.

 

The memorial service is on a Friday morning. The cliché denotes that it should be raining and miserable during funerals, but Seattle surprises us all that day. It’s a rare gloriously sunny late fall day. Perfect.

 

Except that my dad is dead. There’s a service with a closed casket at the funeral home. They tried to convince me to have an open casket, insisting that the morticians had done a stellar job on my father. I took one look at him, at the waxy statue that bore just a passing resemblance to my father, and refused. Then I went out in the parking lot and threw up. Bella finished up inside, making the arrangements for a closed casket and a photograph with a spray of flowers.

 

At the home, Jane is talking to the funeral director, weeping prettily into a Kleenex as he trots out all his best expressions of sympathy for her. He looks up at us as we come in, but Bella immediately steers us to the front row, far corner.

 

I look at her in question and she gives a little shake of her head. “If you’re wandering around when people get here, they’re all going to want to come talk to you and that’s the last thing you need right now. If you’re already sitting with me, they won’t want to intrude.”

 

“How do you know all this?”

 

She looks up at me and gives me a sad little smile. “My dad’s best friend—he didn’t make it, either.”

 

I swallow and look down at our joined hands. I remember the way Bella held me up and together in the hospital, refusing to let me consider the possibility of my father dying. And the whole time she knew—up close and personal—that he probably would. She knew what was coming. Her strength astounds me.

 

People file in, a string of men my dad knows from years in business. They’re all around his age and they’re all wearing subtle variations on the same dark suit. A few of them are with women that remind me of my mother—same age, same patrician good looks. The rest are with versions of Jane—hot and young enough to be their daughters. It’s fucking depressing as hell.

 

They all look grim, like they’d rather be anywhere else on earth. I’m sure this sobering reminder of their own mortality is unpleasant for them all. I wonder how many more of them are going to go home and swap out their wives for a Jane, desperate for one last grasp at youth, however illusory.

 

I lean over and whisper what I’m thinking to Bella and she glances over her shoulder at the room full of them behind her.

 

“It must be hard for them, I think.”

 

“Excuse me? Hard for _them_? Leaving their wives and families to chase women young enough to be their daughters?”

 

“Yeah, but why do you think they do it? Because they wake up at fifty with some desperate sense that they’ve done it all wrong. A choice they made when they were twenty years old has landed them in a life they don’t even recognize. So they panic and set fire to it all. Sad, really, that they’re all so unaware.”

 

I shake my head. “More like pathetic.”

 

She smiles and leans into my arm. “Of course you would think so. You were smart enough not to make the mistake in the first place.”

 

I blink and stare down at her. I’ve never thought about it that way. Quitting the business program has always seemed like a failure to me, maybe because that’s what my father told me it was. But as I glance around the room full of the men that I could have turned into if I’d chosen differently, for the first time, I can see what Bella means. I saved myself from a fate I didn’t even know was waiting for me.

 

And Bella… that she thinks of it like that, too. She doesn’t think of it as quitting or failing. She sees it as something almost noble. We still have a long way to go to figure out our future together, but I feel a small piece of the puzzle fall into place just then.

 

The service starts right after that. It’s conducted by some Unitarian minister Bella found. We aren’t religious, so there’s no church to call to handle this. This person speaking is a stranger and the service is predictably impersonal. He could be talking about anyone lying in that casket. It reinforces for me how unreal everything still is. None of it feels like real life. None of it feels like anything at all.

 

Marcus, my father’s business partner, speaks—just a few words about the many years he’s known my father. Hearing him talk about his “friendship” with my dad is like hearing a story about a corporate merger. Bella was right. This is a shame. He didn’t have any family outside me and my mother, and that fell completely apart. All the men in this room probably wouldn’t even be here if they hadn’t earned a lot of money with my father. Jane was probably more out the door than in it when he died. What the hell is this to show for fifty years on the planet? I might not know much about where I’m headed, but I sure as hell hope that wherever it winds up being, it’s better than this.

 

After the service, there’s a reception at my father’s condo in downtown Seattle. Calling it a wake seems wrong, since that implies drinking and sharing fond stories of the deceased, and that’s not what this is. This is a sober, sedate gathering of investment bankers who’d rather be anywhere else. Coffee is served, pastry is eaten. People stand in clusters of two or three and talk about the business and how my father will be missed there.

 

I slowly wind through the room, clutching Bella’s hand like a lifeline. I let people stop me and I say all the things I’ve perfected in the last few days. All the time, the litany in my head goes on and on. Not real. None of this is real.

 

Carlisle and Esme show up and I smile the first genuine smile in what feels like a week. They talk to Bella and me like real people, not like generic mourners. They’re the first people I’ve spoken to all day that don’t sound like Hallmark cards. Esme hugs me and hangs on to me for a long time, making me promise not to be too proud to call them if I need help. I promise her I won’t. When she finally lets me go, Bella smoothly hooks her arm in with hers and turns her away to chat so that I can talk to Carlisle one-on-one.

 

Carlisle smiles, sad and tired. “There’s nothing I can say to you to make any of this easier, Edward.”

 

I nod. “You’re not trying to say something to make it easier and believe me, right now, that’s perfect.”

 

“People never know what to say at times like these.”

 

“Especially not my father’s people,” I say, not bothering to cover up my bitterness.

 

Carlisle chews on his bottom lip for a second, like he’s thinking about saying something but he’s not sure if he should.

 

“Go on,” I finally prompt him. “Spit it out. I hope we’re past the polite chit-chat stage, Carlisle.”

 

He laughs softly. “Yes, we are. Look, Edward,” he looks down at his feet as he talks, so I know it’s hard for him to say this. “I know your relationship with your father was strained at best and that this all happened at a terrible time.”

 

I just nod. All of that is beyond true.

 

“Well,” he continues. “I just want you to know… that is, I hope you feel that you have other people in your life that love and support you.”

 

I can only stare at him as I try and swallow around the sudden lump in my throat.

 

“Because Esme and I both feel…” He pauses and takes a breath. “You know you’re so much more than an employee to us. I just want to make sure you know that.”

 

“Carlisle, that’s…” And I don’t have any more words. Thankfully, I don’t need them, as Carlisle pulls me into a brief, but firm hug. Now my eyes burn. In fact, now the emotion threatens to overwhelm me. Carlisle seems to sense it, of course, and pulls back, clapping me on the shoulder. “We won’t keep you. We’ll just go pay our respects to the… ah, to Jane.”

 

Then he and Esme are swallowed up by the crowd and Bella is back at my side.

 

“C’mon,” she says, tugging on my hand gently. I let her lead me back through my father’s sprawling, sleek, modern condo, down the hall with the framed generic black and white arty photographs to the last door on the right, which turns out to be his office. His desk is massive and dark ebony. There are still stacks of papers and folders, like he’s going to sit back down tonight and pick up where he left off. I’ll have to sort through all of that. I feel weak with the weight of it.

 

“Sit,” Bella commands gently.

 

I sit in the black leather armchair next to the desk. Bella perches on the arm and wraps both arms around my shoulders. I rest my temple against her forehead. She kisses me just in front of my ear.

 

“How are you holding up?” she murmurs.

 

“Fine. Too fine. It’s unreal.”

 

“Just give it time. This is overwhelming.”

 

I close my eyes and nod. When I open them again, I blink at what I see. My own face, younger, staring back at me from a silver frame on the desk. I reach out and slide it closer.

 

It’s my dad and me when I was about thirteen, back when everything seemed golden. _We_ were golden, bathed in bright yellow late afternoon sunlight. The picture was taken in our front yard and my dad’s new car is behind us. I remember the day he brought it home. It was the nicest car in the neighborhood. The hood is up and my father and I are both bent at the waist, caught in the middle of examining the spotless new V-8 engine. Except that whoever took the picture—my mother, I’m guessing—has called us and we’re both looking over our shoulders at the camera. We’re both smiling. Real and wide and relaxed. I can’t even remember my father smiling like that, not for years.

 

I stare at the picture, tracing my finger over the shape of my thirteen-year-old self in a white t-shirt with hair that’s grown out too long. I look happy. He looks happy. And I can almost feel my mother’s happiness through the camera, too, at coming out to find us like this, buried in the car.

 

My mother took pictures of everything. She documented every significant milestone with a camera. I remember it well. So many pictures of my father and I standing stiffly side-by-side as I clutched a series of accolades. Me at the debate tournament win, me on the night the varsity baseball team won regionals, me in my cap and gown at high school graduation. But he didn’t put any of those pictures in a frame. He picked this one.

 

I’m gripping the frame tightly in both hands, trying to figure out the answers in our younger, smiling, sun-washed faces, and I can’t.

 

“Edward?”

 

Bella runs a hand down the back of my neck and I inhale sharply.

 

“Sorry. I was just surprised to see this here,” I reply.

 

“Edward?”

 

My head snaps up, because that’s not Bella. Jane’s standing just inside the office door.

 

“Your boss and his wife are getting ready to leave. They’re looking for you to say goodbye.”

 

“I’ll go catch them,” Bella says, standing and hurrying towards the door.

 

“I’ll be right there.”

 

She nods and goes.

 

“What’s that?” Jane crosses to the desk to see what I’m holding. “Oh, that one. I wouldn’t let him keep it in the bedroom. Kinda creepy, you know? I mean, since you look so much like him and you’re… you know… my age.”

 

_Yeah, I really needed that underlined for me. Thank you, Jane._

 

I stand up quickly. “I was just surprised that he picked this one to keep.”

 

Jane smiles and her eyes dart from the picture up to my face. “You really do look so much like him,” she says. It’s a little wistful, but not enough. Her eyes lock on mine and she smiles. “Just so much younger, of course.”

 

I feel sick to my stomach. She’s fucking _flirting_ with me. I push past her abruptly, not even trying to be gentle or polite. “I have to go say goodbye to Carlisle and Esme.”

 

I catch up to them by the front door. Esme is holding both of Bella’s hands in hers as she says something to her. I like how much they seem to like each other. As I approach, Bella looks at me and I can’t help it. I scowl and give her a little head shake to indicate that we’ll talk later. Jane passes us on the right and Bella stares daggers in her back as she goes. I’m so with her on that one.   
  


We say goodbye to Carlisle and Esme, and then Marcus is there right behind them, also getting ready to go.

 

“I know it’s a terrible time for you Edward, but the sooner we can get the will dealt with, the better.”

 

“The will?”

 

“Of course,” Marcus says, shrugging into his coat. “Your father was very thorough about that sort of thing.”

 

“He would have been, I guess. Sorry, it hadn’t even crossed my mind yet.”

 

Marcus has the decency to look apologetic, although it’s not particularly genuine. “It’s just that our clients are feeling a little anxious. They want to make sure they’re investments will be taken care of now that we’ve lost your father.”

 

“Sure. Right. I wasn’t even thinking about that, but you’re right. It’s important. Can we deal with it tomorrow?”

 

He gives me a small smile and claps me on the shoulder. “I’ll call the lawyer and set up a meeting. See you then.”

 

*0*0*

 

The next day at one, we’re assembled in a conference room in a downtown high-rise office building. My father’s lawyer, Roger Banner, is presiding at the head of the table, a laptop open in front of him and a stack of files off to one side. Marcus is sitting to his right and Jane is on his left. I’m sitting next to Marcus, one empty chair separating us, and Bella is next to me. I’m holding her hand under the table, resting them on my thigh. She suggested early this morning that maybe she shouldn’t be at this meeting, but I gave her one stern look and she backed down without another word.

 

She hasn’t said anything while we’ve been here, but she doesn’t need to. She’s here, that’s all I need.

 

Banner pulls the top file off the stack and slides sleek titanium reading glasses onto the end of his nose. He opens it and cranes his head back to look down his nose through the lenses.

 

“Alright, let’s review what we’ve got here,” he says without preamble. I guess I should be glad he’s cutting to the chase since I’m sure he charges by the hour and somebody in this room is paying for it. “Edward was diligent about legal matters, so all the documents are current and complete. This should be fairly straight-forward.”

 

I smile grimly. My father was on a first-name basis with his lawyer. That doesn’t surprise me at all. Roger Banner skims the document briefly, more than likely just reviewing what he already knows. He flips a few pages up, checking something, then lowers them and sets the file down on the glossy dark wood table with a snap. He looks up through his glasses directly at me.   
  


“Edward Masen, Sr.’s property, funds, and assets are left to Edward Masen, Jr. in their entirety.”

 

I blink at him once. “Excuse me?”

 

“Excuse me?” Jane echoes from across the table, sitting up sharply.

 

Banner swings his head around to look at her. “He left everything to Edward.”

 

“But…” she sputters. “What about me?”

 

Banner clears his throat at Jane’s awkward, tactless question. “There is no provision in the will for you.”

 

“I’m sure he meant to!” Jane nearly shouts. “Maybe he just didn’t get a chance to fix it since we got together. That must be it!”

 

Bella gives a tiny snort of disgust at my side and I sense her shift in her seat. My head is still swimming. I need to think about all this shit and Jane’s tantrum is pissing me off.

  
Banner flips back to the last page of the document in his hand to check something. “The will was amended last month. It’s as current as it’s possible to be.”

 

Jane’s mouth falls open, but she doesn’t make any noise. Her face, with the gaping fish-mouth, would be almost funny under any ordinary circumstances but now it’s just in really bad taste.

 

Finally, Marcus clears his throat and leans forward. Thank God somebody is going to rescue us from the tense, painful silence in this room. “I think Edward should take a look at the list of his father’s holdings so he can see exactly what we’re discussing here.”

 

There’s a loud scraping sound as Jane pushes her chair back roughly and stands. “Fuck this,” she spits out. “I was with Edward for nine stupid months and this is how he repays me? I’m going home.”

 

“To pack, I hope,” Bella mutters under her breath, but Jane doesn’t hear her.

 

More awkward silence ensues as she grabs her purse in a clumsy rush and storms out of the conference room. The gesture isn’t quite as dramatic as I’m sure she planned when the strap of her purse gets caught on the door handle and she’s got to stop and untangle herself. Either way, though, in a matter of seconds, she’s gone. You can almost see the dust settle in her wake.

 

Roger Banner clears his throat, “Well…”

 

Finally, I’m spurred to speak. “Look, I know this all needs to get dealt with right away, but can I just have a day or two to think about this? I’m kind of overwhelmed right now. I mean, why would he leave everything to me anyway?”

 

Roger finally smiles just a little and shakes his head, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Because you’re his son, of course. And yes, take a few days to look over the file and familiarize yourself with the assets before you make any decisions about what you want to do.”

 

He pages his secretary and tells her to put together a package for me. There are a few more perfunctory farewells and then we’re free.

 

Twenty floors down, once we’ve cleared the glass and marble lobby and we’re out on the sidewalk, I just stop and close my eyes, inhaling the cold, damp air. Bella wraps both hands around my upper arm and leans her cheek on my shoulder. She doesn’t say anything for a long time, she just holds onto me. I let her. I hold on to her, too. Finally, she draws a deep breath and I open my eyes to hear what she’s got to say.

 

“Jesus Christ, I fucking hate Jane.”

 

And in spite of everything, I laugh. I keep laughing. I can’t _stop_ laughing. I laugh so loud and so hard that I can’t breathe and tears are leaking out of the corners of my eyes. I can’t stop and part of me recognizes that I’m laughing so that I don’t cry, but I don’t even care. I just laugh.

 

“I _do_!” Bella presses. “She’s just so unbelievably _awful_ , isn’t she?”

 

I double over with renewed laughing. After a few seconds, Bella starts chuckling too, and then we’re hanging onto each other in the middle of the sidewalk, laughing like a couple of lunatics. People are skirting around us and looking at us nervously.

 

Finally, it tapers off. I feel wrung out, dopey, exhausted, caught between some sort of weird euphoria and complete sadness. Bella tugs on my hand with a sigh.   
  


“Okay, let’s forget Jane. What do you want to do now?”

 

I look at her for a long moment. She looks as tired as I feel and her eyes are still a little watery from the laughing fit. I reach up and run my thumb under them, smoothing the puffy skin there, cupping her face.

 

“I want to take you home and take you to bed. Is that wrong? That’s probably wrong. I shouldn’t want that now, right?”

 

She smiles and wraps her hands around my wrists. “There’s no wrong. There’s just what you want. What you need. Let’s go.”

 


	12. Love Me Through the Winter

**  
**

 

Back at home, after we’ve fed ourselves and a couple of beers have loosened my rigid nerves, I pull Bella down into the bed with me. She’s stayed with me every night since my dad went into the hospital, but that was more for comfort. Even the morning after she came back, when we had sex was more about reassurance than lust. Every night that we’ve fallen into bed, I’ve just curled her into my chest and hold on tight so I can sleep in peace.

 

But tonight is different. She’s here and we’re together and I want to show her that it’s different. Even though she hasn’t left my side in days, I’ve missed her. She must have been missing me too because after just one little tug on her hand, she’s pushing me back on the bed forcefully, crawling over me, pressing her body down on mine and kissing me hard.

 

I let her set the pace, her lips and her tongue all over mine. Her hands are gripping my shoulders, then sliding down over my chest, her fingertips skimming over my abdomen. Our kisses are slow and deep and endless. When she tugs the hem of my shirt up and lays her palm flat against my stomach, the slow coil of lust building inside of me suddenly snaps tight. I grab her hips and pull her down until she’s pressed into me and I’m pushing up into her. She sighs into my mouth and grinds down on me.

 

“God, Edward…”

 

I reach up and tangle my fingers in the long sweep of her hair, pushing it back off her face, gripping the back of her head. She rises up just enough to look at me. I rub my thumb down her temple.

 

“I love you.” It’s so easy now.

 

She smiles, slowly and wide, before leaning back in to press her mouth back on mine again. I roll us, settling down over her. She wraps herself fully around me, arms around my shoulders, legs around my hips. We’re kissing and grinding and groping and there are so many clothes between us.

 

“Naked,” I mutter, kissing the side of her neck.

  
“Yes, sir,” she chuckles. I laugh before I rear up off her and strip off my shirt. By the time I’ve gotten out of my pants, Bella has sent all her clothes to the floor, too. I sit back on my heels and just look at her, laid out underneath me. She smiles up at me, but as I continue to just look, she starts to squirm. One arm comes up over her chest.

 

“What are you looking at?” she asks, her cheekbones lightly flushing.

 

“You. You’re beautiful.”

 

She gives an embarrassed little smile and rolls her eyes. I pull her arm away from her chest and pin both her wrists by her head.

 

“What? Isn’t that what boyfriends do? They tell their girlfriends that they’re beautiful? I told you I suck at this so you’ll have to tell me if I’m doing it wrong.”

 

She chuckles but when she replies, she’s breathy and serious. “You’re doing it perfectly. You’re perfect, Edward.”

 

And _that’s_ perfect. Of all the things she could say to me, she always seems to say just the right one—the thing that makes me feel like a hero.

 

We’re done teasing and joking after that. I lower myself down to her and wrap myself around her. She’s warm and soft and every desperate part of me fits just right against her. The frantic edge is gone, too. It’s just a slow build-up, kissing and touching, until I slide inside her, as easy as breathing.

 

I will never get tired of this, of the feel of her slim body arching underneath me, her arms around my back, her long legs holding me against her. Being this tired, I’m not going to last long, but maybe that’s okay. There’s no timeline for us anymore. I have her for as long as I want her, and I want her for a long, long time. Maybe forever.

 

When we’re both done, exhausted and sated, she pulls me back down on her, with my head on her chest, her heartbeat a steady, peaceful thump under my cheek. I want to stay awake and talk. I still feel like there’s so much we should say. But I can’t. I’m so tired and she’s so soothing. I sink below the surface of her breath and her hands.

 

Hours later, I wake with a jolt. I wasn’t dreaming, at least not that I can remember. But I’m shaky and unsettled. I can feel my father like a physical presence all around me. I’m tense all over, expecting to hear his voice in my ear any second. I feel like he just walked out of the room.

 

Bella sighs and shifts in her sleep next to me. I carefully slide away from her body to avoid waking her, easing myself out of bed. I find my boxers and t-shirt on the floor and I move to the living room. Sleep feels a long way off and I figure I’ll read or something until I’m tired again.

 

The files from the lawyer’s office are still spread across the coffee table where we left them earlier. I don’t know why I do it, because it’s certainly not going to help me sleep, but I pick up the top one and flip it open.

 

There are so many pages. Endless documents and statements, cataloguing every aspect of my father’s life on paper. There are bank statements, lists of investments and accounts, deeds and titles, and a huge stack of stuff that is only related to his business. I need to hand that over to Marcus, maybe see if he wants to buy me out or something, because there’s no way I’m keeping the business. That one’s a no-brainer.

 

I flip idly through the paperwork and start to notice something. My name. Over and over. It was his name, too, but this is different. This is me. Edward Masen, Jr. On every document, I’m listed as the next of kin, the emergency contact, the “other authorized person” on the accounts. And when I get to the stack of documents about the business, there are whole pages written up, outlining how my father’s half of the business is to be transferred to me. He wrote this. Months, maybe even years, ago.

 

“Hey, what are you doing out here?” Bella’s leaning on the doorframe looking rumpled and sleepy, her body swallowed up by one of my t-shirts.

 

“Sorry I woke you up. I couldn’t sleep.”

 

“S’okay,” she mumbles, crossing to settle next to me. She turns to face my side and wraps her whole body around me, her long, bare legs around my hips and her arms around my shoulders. “What are you looking at?”

 

“All this paperwork.”

 

“Now? You really want to go over this stuff now?”

 

“No, not really. I was just looking at it and I kept noticing something.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Me.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I’m everywhere in this stuff, on every page. He put me everywhere.”

 

“Of course. He was leaving it all to you.”

 

I shake my head as the thoughts start to clarify for me, so I can say it to her. “No, it’s not like that. It’s like… I don’t know… we were all fucked up and barely speaking. I was so angry at him and he was so disappointed in me. But he still put me in everything. He was thinking about me when he wrote every one of these.”

 

Bella is quiet for a minute, just pressing her face against my shoulder. “Do you know why?”

 

I snort in a little humorless laugh. “That’s what I’m sitting here trying to figure out.”

 

“It’s because he loved you, Edward. He’s your father. You’re his son. Whatever you guys were going through didn’t change that. _Nothing_ changed that, even if it seemed that way to you sometimes.”

 

I’m stunned for a second. “I don’t…”

 

“Did I ever tell you that my dad was really pissed about my major?” She changes the subject so quickly that I have to pause for a second before I answer.

 

“You didn’t tell me much at all about your dad, if you remember.”

 

She shoves my shoulder gently. “Hush, you. You’re going to get more of my dad than you ever bargained for. But, listen. When I told him I wanted to get my PhD in Comparative Lit, he thought it was a waste of time.”

 

“Bella, he’s so proud of you. He told me so himself.”

 

“He is _now_. But at first, he wasn’t happy. He figured that if I was going to spend all that time and money becoming a doctor of something, it should be a doctor of medicine. You  know… a _real_ job. He actually said that to me once in the middle of a fight.”

 

“I can’t believe that.”

 

She chuckles. “Believe it. He thought being an English major was pointless. We fought about it a lot. And even when we got past the fighting, it was still a touchy subject for a long time.”

 

“What changed?”

 

“Lots of things. Time passed. He saw how hard I worked in undergrad, and how much it meant to me. We got better at talking to each other like two adults. It doesn’t really matter, that’s not the point. The point is, eventually we got through it. And you would have, too. As bad as it seems now, you would have gotten through it. Maybe not perfectly and maybe you’d have never really seen eye-to-eye, but he loved you and under all your anger, you loved him, too.”

 

Out of nowhere, my throat seizes up and my eyes burn. I can’t breathe.

 

“Fuck.”

 

I curl forward, over my knees and squeeze my eyes shut.

 

_Fuck._

 

He’s dead and gone and he was my father and I loved him and he’s _gone_. My shroud of numbness that’s gotten me through the days since that first phone call falls away and all the sadness fucking swamps me. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes but I still see us, our faces from that photograph in his office, that day when we were happy.

 

Bella shifts and presses closer to me. I feel her hands in my hair and her lips against the side of my neck, shushing me and whispering comforting little words against my skin.

 

I’m gasping for breath and fighting back the hot sting of tears. “I can’t fix it.”

 

Bella sighs, such a sad sound. “No, you can’t. Not now. And that’s the really shitty part. You’ll never get the chance to know what might have happened. So you’re going to have to make peace with it all on your own.”

 

“I don’t know how,” I whisper. I feel so small and weak right now, but it’s okay. I know she’s okay with it and it’s not a bad thing to be weak in front of her. I’m asking for her help, and I’m letting her in to give it. That doesn’t make _me_ weak—it makes _us_ stronger. I get that now.

 

“You don’t have to know yet. It will probably take a long time, Edward. Stuff like this… stuff that never gets resolved… it’s _really_ hard to let go of. But I know you’ll figure it out. You know why?”

 

I shake my head and sniff, swiping my palms across my eyes.

 

“You’re smarter than he was.”

 

I snort. “My father was a fucking genius, Bella.”

 

“Yeah, at _this_ stuff.” She waves her hand at the stacks of papers all over the table. “But not at the important stuff. Remember all those guys at the funeral? You said they were just like your dad.”

 

I nod.

 

“So I think it’s safe to say that your dad wasn’t exactly in touch with his emotions.”

 

I almost laugh out loud at that. “Uh, no. You’d be right about that.”

 

“See? You’re so much further along than him.”

 

“How do you figure that?”

 

“Well, for starters, you’re out here torturing yourself about this in the middle of the night. It _matters_ to you. And then there’s us. You could have given up. Run away. You didn’t. You called me. You asked me to come. That took a lot of guts.”

 

“I have been anything but brave when it comes to you. I was too chicken shit to even acknowledge that I wanted a relationship with you.”

 

“Maybe at first. But now? Here we are, talking, dealing with stuff. That’s kind of huge for you, Edward. I’m not saying if your dad was still here that it would have been easy. It would have been really hard. But you’d have managed for the same reason you’re going to manage now. Because you’re strong and loving and you’re such a good person.”

 

All the air leaves my lungs in a long tired sigh. “I’m such a mess, Bella. I don’t know where I’m going or what the hell I’m doing with my life.”

 

She presses her lips against my shoulder in a quick kiss. “Doesn’t matter.”

 

“How can you say that? You’re going to Europe next year, and you’re doing all this amazing stuff in school and I’m just—“

 

“You. You’re you. I love _you_ , not your life plan or your career. Just you.”

 

I turn my face to look at her in the dark. We’re just inches apart, our arms and legs still all tangled until I can hardly tell where I stop and she starts. And God, I love her. This amazing, sweet girl who loves me back against all better reasoning.

 

“I’ll figure it out,” I say quietly.  “I will, I promise. Just…”

 

“What?”

 

“Just be there for me when I do.”

 

She smiles in the dim light. “I can’t wait to see it.”

 

*0*0*

 

“Now look, Tyler, either you can work your shifts this week or not. ‘I’ll see what I can do’ just doesn’t cut it. Are we clear here?”

 

Tyler doesn’t look up at me, but he nods, albeit a little sullenly. I glare at him for another minute until he starts to squirm. The employees generally think of me as a nice guy, one of them, but I’ve found it pays to remind them now and then of who’s boss. And that’s me—at least it is until Carlisle and Esme get back from their month in Europe.

 

“So you’ll be here at three on Thursday.” I don’t ask him, I tell him. I set the damned schedule. If he wants his job, he’ll show up for his shift.

 

“Yeah, three on Thursday.”

 

“Great. Now, there’s a cart of books in back that need to be restocked. Can you take care of that?”

 

He nods and heads to the back without another word. I say thank you anyway. I’m still a nice guy after all.

 

Sometimes I hear myself talking to the employees and I can hardly believe it’s me. I’ve been managing the store for five months now and all of this responsibility and authority has been easier to handle than I’d expected. I’m actually pretty damned good at it. Still, hearing myself order people around, sounding sure of myself, confident, responsible… it’s a little surreal.

 

I stay a little longer to make sure Tyler’s really restocking and not hiding behind a shelf texting his girlfriend, and I make sure Charlotte is cool on the register. Of course she is. Charlotte could run the register in her sleep. When I’m satisfied that everything is under control, I pack up my backpack. All my books and papers from Auditing Standards are spread out on the back counter from my earlier study session before the store opened. I have a test in the class this afternoon, but that’s not until three and I’m feeling solid on the material, so I’m sneaking out a little early.

 

“Char, you got this?” I ask once more, just to be sure.

 

She smiles at me, knowing full well where I’m headed. “Absolutely. And don’t worry, I’ll kick Tyler’s ass and keep him in line.”

 

I smile at her. “I have no doubt that you will.”

 

“I’ll enjoy it, too. I promise, we’ll be fine.”

 

“I’ll be back after my class for closing.”

 

“See you then. Good luck on your test!”

 

After one last glance at Tyler to make sure he’s still working, I feel relaxed enough to leave the store. If anybody can run the place in my absence, it’s Charlotte, but I still get anxious whenever I leave it in someone else’s hands, even for a few hours.

 

I walk fast across campus, wanting to maximize my little window of freedom before my class. Spring hit Seattle with a vengeance about two weeks ago and all around me, everything is aggressively green and blooming. It makes you feel renewed just being outside.

 

The winter was long and sometimes difficult. The grief over losing my father crept up on me slowly and even now hits me at odd, unexpected times. Bella was right; the lack of closure is really hard to deal with, but I’m trying. Esme talks with me about it sometimes and that’s been helpful. It’s easier to get perspective on it looking at it through someone else’s eyes.

 

I’m still not okay with everything, but I know that eventually I will be, as long as I keep moving forward and working on it. Bella was right about that.

 

The winter has been painful in that respect, but it’s been so good in others. Because Bella’s been with me for all of it. She was there to help me with all of the unpleasant logistical shit—selling my half of the business to Marcus, selling my father’s condo (after finding out that Jane disappeared, taking everything of value that wasn’t nailed down), and learning my way around a morass of really complicated financial investments.

 

But she’s also been there for the easiest part of all—us. What we started last fall has grown into something I never could have imagined for myself. She’s become the most important thing in my life, my reason and my happiness. I have other things I care about—managing the store and finishing my degree—but she runs through everything, giving my life a purpose that it never had before.

 

I enrolled in a full course-load this quarter, which is a challenge along with managing the store, but I’m doing alright. I carried a full load last quarter, too, and I survived. As fate would have it, I’ve found myself back in the business department, but not as prep for earning my M.B.A, like before.

 

When I went in for academic advisement last fall and my advisor went over my transcript with me, we decided that since most of the credits I’d earned were in business-related courses, I’d be best off pursuing a degree in that department. After a lot of soul-searching, along with endless discussions with Bella, Carlisle and Esme, I decided: accounting. Sometimes if I say it out loud—Edward Masen, C.P.A.—I cringe a little. But only a little, because it turns out I’m really good at it and more surprising to me, I actually like it.

 

Since I’ve finally chosen a major and applied myself in earnest, I’m doing really well in school. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you’re dedicated to something. I’ve met a couple of people through the mentoring program that have found interesting ways to use their degree, so I’m confident I can work out a job in the end that will make me happy.

 

Besides, the money my father left me hasn’t set me up for life or anything, but it will give me a little freedom. I don’t have to slave away for H & R Block or something. I can set up my own deal, and work with just a handful of clients if I want. Basically, I can craft my own future. I doubt it’s the future my father was envisioning when he left me everything he’d worked so hard for, but it’s the one I want, so I’m grateful for what he did for me nonetheless.

 

Bella talked through all the ins and outs of my choice of major with me, but I left her out of one important factor in my decision-making process because I didn’t want her to feel pressured. Accountants can work all over the country in one form or another. I know enough about Bella’s chosen field at this point to know she might not have much say about where she ends up. If she gets offered a teaching position, she needs to take it, no matter where it is. And I fully intend to follow her there, no matter where it is. And I need tell her that soon.

 

I’m smiling just thinking about her, and I pick up my pace across campus. I take the steps of the library two at a time and weave through the main floor, past circulation and the reference desk. At the back of the second floor, I find the long table that her study group favors. It’s near enough to their grad student carrels but still tucked away enough to be out of the main flow of foot traffic in the stacks.

 

Books and laptops are spread out everywhere and I spot Bella’s stuff next to a small stack of books I recognize from my apartment this morning. There are three people working at the table and they all look up when I come around the corner.

 

“Hey, Edward,” Jess calls brightly when she sees me.

 

“Hi, Jess, how are you?”

 

She rolls her eyes and groans. “Buried.”

 

It’s the stock answer for all of Bella’s classmates. They’re always up to their eyes in some kind of work. I round the table and stop briefly behind Angela, leaning down to kiss her cheek. Angie and her boyfriend, Ben, have become good friends to Bella and me. We hang out a lot.

 

“How’s it going, Ang?” I ask.

 

She reaches up and pats my hand where it rests on her shoulder and sighs. “This paper is due in a week, so I’m sure you can guess. Bella’s back in the two-seventies. She’ll be glad to see you. Make her take a break, will you? She’s driving herself too hard, as usual.”

 

“What do you think I’m here for?” I smile down at her. “I’m stealing her away for lunch.”

 

“Good, she needs it.”

 

Angela turns back to her laptop and I give a tight nod of acknowledgment to the third person at the table, Riley. He lifts his chin at me, no smile. _That’s right, asshole, I’m here for my girlfriend_. I still irrationally hate the guy, even though I have no reason to. Whatever. He hates me, too, so we’re even.

 

I head down the aisle, skimming call numbers, until I reach the row housing the one Angela rattled off to me. I see Bella as soon as I turn the corner. She’s standing facing the shelves with her head bowed, a book open in her hand. There are two more books open and lying across the tops of the shelved ones, so she can reference them. At some point in the morning, she’s twisted her hair up behind her head and shoved a pen through it to hold it. It’s sagging and about to fall down completely. Long wisps have come loose and they’re floating around the back of her pale, arched neck. Her eyebrows are slightly furrowed as she reads.

 

Classic Bella.

 

She does this all the time. She’ll wander into the stacks to get a book, start reading right where she stands, and completely forget to bring things back to her table. She’ll stand there reading for hours.

 

She’s so lost that she doesn’t even hear me slip up behind her. Quickly, quietly, I reach out on either side of her and grab the shelf, pressing myself up against her back at the same time. I duck down and kiss her exposed neck.

 

She gasps and lets out a choked little sound of surprise, twisting around against me.

 

“Jesus,” she laughs, “You scared the crap out of me.”

 

I just grin and push her into the shelf. “Maybe if you came up for air once in a while, I wouldn’t have to resort to ambushing you in the stacks.”

 

She grins back. “Maybe so.”

 

“Mmm hmm.” I lean in and kiss her quickly. Then I go in for another one, this one longer, deeper, hotter. I reach up and pull the pen out of her hair so it all falls down, and I dig my fingers into it. She moans into my mouth. I reach down for her hips, pulling her body into mine. She gropes out to the side and drops her book with a thud on an empty stretch of shelf before her hands go into my hair.

 

I was only intending to kiss her hello and this is rapidly escalating into a lot more than that, but I’m okay with that. Of course, there’s the unfortunate reality that we’re in the library stacks in the middle of the day and I have a test in two hours. With a disappointed sigh, I pull back from her mouth, moving to the side of her neck and the part of her shoulder exposed by the neckline of her skimpy little spring shirt.

 

“As much as I’m enjoying this,” I mutter against her skin, “I really only came to drag you away to have lunch with me.”

 

“Mmmm,” she says as my teeth scrape over her collarbone, “Lunch?”

 

“Lunch. Although you’re much tastier than food and I’d rather—”

 

“Don’t promise things you can’t deliver,” she cuts me off, pushing my head away and straightening her shirt.

 

“Oh, I’ll deliver, alright. But not until tonight.”

 

She gives a groaning little sigh and burrows her face into the side of my neck, kissing me quickly. “Don’t you have a test today?”

 

“Not till three.”

 

“You’re not studying?”

 

“I’m solid.”

 

“Aren’t you cocky?”

 

“Confident,” I correct her. “You know this about me.”

 

She laughs. “Yeah, when it comes to women, not Auditing Standards.”

 

“You know, I might have been a slacker when you met me, but I’m not exactly dumb. And I happen to be very good at math.”

 

“You forget I was here for your first two tests for this class, so I know how good you are at math. I’m making you do my taxes for me this year.”

 

“Only if you come to lunch with me right this second.”

 

She makes a face and glances at her books behind her. “I have so much to do…”

 

“And you’ll do it better on a full stomach. Come on.”

 

I snag her books off the shelf over her shoulder and start walking.

 

“Edward!” But she follows me, so mission accomplished. We pause at the table just long enough for her to pack up her laptop and grab her bag. She still leaves it open on the table when she goes into the stacks, no matter how many times I tell her not to. She swears that since Eric left, she trusts everyone in her group. I tell her she shouldn’t trust Riley, but she just laughs and says I’m crazy. She’s probably right, I just enjoy hating on the guy.

 

She blinks like a mole coming above ground when we step outside of the library.

 

“Wow, it turned out to be a beautiful day, huh?”

 

“See? Aren’t you glad I came to get you?”

 

She smiles up at me. “I’d be glad you came to get me even if there were a monsoon outside.”

 

We get sandwiches from a guy pushing a cart across campus and find a grassy spot under a tree. Students are sprawled on the ground everywhere around us, enjoying the sun and warm weather.

 

We chat about her paper and my test while we eat, and when she finishes, Bella stretches out with her head in my lap. I lean back on the tree and run my fingers through her hair. We’re quiet for a while, just soaking up the weather and the day and each other.

 

“So…” Bella says at length.

 

 I crack open an eye and look down at her, raising one eyebrow. I know that “so”. She’s got something to say.

 

“What?”

 

She shakes her head. “Never mind. I’ll tell you later. After your test.”

 

“Oh, c’mon, you can’t do that. It’s out there now. If you don’t tell me, I’ll be worried about it during my test. You have to tell me.”

 

She huffs. “Alright. I got an email from the University of Naples today.”

 

I sit up straighter and look down at her with both eyes wide open. “And?”

 

She shrugs and looks down at her hands, fidgeting. I lay my hand over hers to still her and get her to look at me. She sighs. “I’m on the short list. Top five applicants.”

 

“That’s fantastic, Bella,” I tell her, grinning widely.

 

“It’s _Naples_ , Edward,” she says. “ _Italy_.”

 

“So? Do you not want to go now? I thought it was one of your top choices.”

 

“It was. It _is_. But…”

 

I sigh and nudge her with my knee. “Sit up. Talk. What’s wrong?”

 

She pulls herself upright, crossing her legs and facing me. I reach out and grab her hands, pulling them into my lap.

 

“We haven’t really talked about this,” she says hesistantly. “Me going to Europe next year. What—”

 

“What it means for us?” I finish for her, since she seems reluctant to do it. She nods. Her face is so anxious. I reach out and cup her cheek, rubbing her cheekbone with my thumb. “We haven’t talked about it, but I’ve been thinking about it.”

 

“You have?”

 

“Some. Look, you know you need to do this, right? If they offer you a spot, you’re going. It’s non-negotiable.”

 

“But—”

 

“No buts. Not about that, anyway.”

 

“You’re still in school.”

 

“I know. And I’ll keep going. Bella, we can do this. It’s not that long. A few months in the fall and a few more in the spring. You’ll come home for the break, or hell, maybe I’ll go there. Me and you in Italy for Christmas. Doesn’t sound so bad, huh?”

 

“You think so?” Her eyes abruptly fill with tears, which is crazy. Bella rarely cries. I’ve only seen her do it twice, in fact. I feel bad, wondering how long she’s been torturing herself about this. We should have talked about it sooner so she wouldn’t have worried. I’m still feeling my way through this relationship thing and I’m not always as aware as I should be.

 

“Absolutely,” I say, as firmly as I can. “Did you think I was just going to call the whole thing off when you go?”

 

“I wasn’t sure. I know we’re good, but this is long-distance, Edward. _Serious_ long-distance. It’s a whole different thing.”

 

I shake my head. “It’s the _same_ thing. I love you. That won’t change. The rest is just logistics.”

 

She smiles, but it looks a little pained when she’s fighting back tears. “C’mere.” I pull her forward into my lap and wrap my arms around her waist. I push my face into her hair and inhale deeply. Still one of my favorite places on earth.

 

“It’ll be hard,” she says, running her fingers into the short hair on the back of my neck.

 

“Hell yes, it will be. I can’t even imagine how much I’ll miss you.”

 

“Edward—”

 

“ _But_ … you’ll stay busy and I’ll stay busy and by the time you get back, I’ll be nearly done with school.”

 

“What do you mean? I thought you had a lot more to go.”

 

I smile into her shoulder. “I talked to my advisor yesterday.”

 

Now it’s her turn to goad for information. “And?”

 

“And he says I’m doing really well. If I take a full load over the summer and keep it up through next year, I could be nearly done. Maybe a couple of classes next summer to wrap it up. We’ll have to see.”

 

“So another year and you’re done?”

 

“Looks like it.”

 

She reaches up and grabs my face with both hands. “Edward, I am so, so proud of you.”

 

I don’t blush, but I feel like I could under her scrutiny, with her watery eyes looking at me like this. “I haven’t done it yet,” I mutter.

 

“You will. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

 

“So can you,” I tell her, settling my arms around her hips. “We’re going to be okay.”

 

“You promise?”

 

I look back into her watery brown eyes, and her face, flushed with emotion and a tentative smile. I think about the promises I’ve made Bella. The night I met her I promised simply that I’d make her feel good. I did that. Later, when we took the first cautious steps into a relationship, I promised her I’d figure out myself and my life. Now it looks like I’ve done that, too. I’m about to make her another promise, the most important one I’ve made in my life. I’m promising we’ll stay together, we’ll work out the hard stuff, and I’ll be there for her no matter what. I will move heaven and earth to keep this promise to her, too.

 

I lean forward and press my lips to hers and I whisper, “I promise.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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